Fiesta Bowl

Fiesta Bowl, annual American college postseason football game held at State Farm Stadium (previously called University of Phoenix Stadium) in Glendale, Arizona, beginning in 2007, after having been played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, for the first 35 years of its existence. It is one of six bowls (along with the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl) that take turns hosting the national championship quarterfinal and semifinal games of Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) college football as part of the College Football Playoff.

(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)

The inaugural Fiesta Bowl was held on December 27, 1971, with Arizona State defeating Florida State 45–38. Subsequent games were played during the last week of December until 1982, when the date shifted to January 1. Under the current format of the College Football Playoff, when hosting a quarterfinal game, the Fiesta Bowl is played on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. For semifinal games, the bowl is held the following week.

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In 1987 the Fiesta Bowl pitted two undefeated teams—Penn State and Miami—in a game that, at that time, was the most watched in college football history. Penn State won 14–10 and claimed the national title. The Fiesta Bowl again hosted national champion-defining games in 1989 and 1996. As part of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS; the precursor to the College Football Playoff), in 1999 and 2003 it served as the national championship game, and in 2007, under a new BCS format, the University of Phoenix Stadium was the site of the championship, played just days after the Fiesta Bowl was contested there.

In 2011 the Fiesta Bowl was rocked by scandal when an internal investigation alleged that the bowl’s CEO, John Junker, oversaw widespread malfeasance, such as the illegal payment of politicians, an attempted cover-up of those payments, and lavish expenditures that were billed to the bowl, including Junker’s four-day 50th-birthday party at a golf resort and a $1,200 visit to a strip club. Junker was subsequently fired, and the Fiesta Bowl was forced to pay $1 million to Arizona charities and was placed on one year of probation. However, the relative lightness of the penalty, as well as the fact that the Fiesta Bowl was allowed to remain a part of the BCS and keep its favorable nonprofit tax status, alienated much of the public and led to increased calls for larger reform of the bowl system.

A list of Fiesta Bowl results is provided in the table.