Detroit ― It’s game over for the GameAbove Sports Bowl, and perhaps for Detroit’s long bowl history.
The Lions, who have owned and operated the college football bowl game at Ford Field since 2014, announced Tuesday night what long has been expected following sagging attendance in recent years: The 2025 game will be the team’s last in the bowl business, at least for the foreseeable future.
“We can confirm that we will not host a bowl game at Ford Field in 2026,” the Lions said in a statement posted to social media. “With the end of our current naming rights partnership, we felt this was the right time to adjust our focus to invest in sports at all levels and other entertainment events. We would like to thank everyone who made the bowl game a success, especially you the fans.”
Signs had been pointing to this outcome in recent weeks, following the 2025 game, in which Northwestern beat Central Michigan, 34-7, in December. The game drew a crowd of under 30,000 despite a local participant.
The Lions told The News in January they were evaluating their plans for the future, and GameAbove Sports Group declined to comment.
GameAbove, the booster wing of Eastern Michigan athletics, held the naming rights for the bowl game for two years, 2024 and 2025. The contract expired at the end of 2025.
Previously, the Lions’ bowl game was sponsored by Quick Lane, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. The game started in 2014, and peaked in attendance with more than 34,000 fans for the 2019 game in which Pittsburgh beat Eastern Michigan, 34-30. That was the last Detroit bowl game before COVID canceled the 2020 game. Attendance has never reached 30,000 again.
Before this version of the bowl game, there was the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (previously the Motor City Bowl), started at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1997 and moved to Ford Field in 2002. That game was much more popular with the fans, back in a much different ― and much less-crowded ― era of sports viewing options. That game topped 50,000 in attendance five times and 60,000 once, for Purdue’s 51-48 win over Central Michigan in 2007.
After the 2013 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, the Lions booted that bowl’s organizers, and launched its own game. Little Caesars Pizza Bowl officials floated the idea of moving their game across the street to Comerica Park, though that never materialized.
The Detroit bowl game was the last to be played in the Midwest, and it’s the latest bowl game to be scrapped in recent months, joining the LA Bowl and the Bahamas Bowl. The fear is that more lower-tier bowl games could be on the chopping block, in this era of the expanded College Football Playoff.
Officials from GameAbove Sports Group did not respond to a request for comment from The News on Tuesday. Title sponsorship for a game on Detroit’s level is believed to have cost around $500,000 a year.
In recent years, the Detroit bowl had tie-ins with the Big Ten and Mid-American Conference. In previous years, the Detroit bowl had a tie-in with the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“You know, it’s bittersweet,” Central Michigan head coach Matt Drinkall said Tuesday night. “It’s a cool thing that Central Michigan was involved in the last one, but I just think it’s the bitter realities of college football right now. The bowl games the way we know them are going to shift some.
“I’m sad to see it go. I hope somebody picks up Detroit for a location. The city is awesome.
“Never say never.”
The MAC championship game will continue to be played at Ford Field, which has hosted the game since 2004. Western Michigan won the 2025 game, 23-13 over Miami (Ohio).
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: RIP, GameAbove Sports Bowl: Lions pull plug on longtime Detroit tradition
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
