In the United States, a bowl game is traditionally a post-season college football game; however the term "bowl" has become synonymous with a major American football event and variations of the traditional post-season match-up between two successful college teams do exist.

The term "bowl" originated from the Rose Bowl Stadium, site of the first post-season college football games. The Rose Bowl stadium takes its name and bowl-shaped design from the Yale Bowl, the prototype of many football stadiums in the United States. In college football parlance, the term "bowl" can also be used as a verb: as in a successful team going "bowling".

History

The history of the bowl game begins with the Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by the Tournament of Roses Association between Michigan and Stanford, a game which Michigan won 49-0. The Tournament of Roses eventually sponsored an annual contest starting with the 1916 Tournament of Roses football game. With the 1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completed Rose Bowl stadium, and thus the contest itself became known as the Rose Bowl game. Other cities saw the promotional value for tourism that the Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl carried and began to develop their own regional festivals which included college football games. The label "bowl" was attached to the festival name, even though the games were not always played in bowl-shaped stadiums.

The historic timing of bowl games, around the new year, is the result of two factors: originally bowls began in warm climates such as Southern California, Florida and Texas as a way to promote the area for tourism and business. Since commercial air travel was either non-existent or very limited early on, the games were timed a substantial amount of time after the end of the regular season to allow fans to travel to the game site.

The Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Sun Bowl. By 1950, the number had increased to eight games. In 1960 there were still eight major college bowl games, but by 1970 the number had increased again, to 11 games. The number continued to increase, to 15 games in 1980, to 19 games in 1990, 25 games in the year 2000 and as of 2008, 34 games in total. Up until around the 1950s, games were played solely on New Years Day, with few exceptions. In the late 1950s, more bowl games began playing their games earlier in December. Also bowl games began to be set in cities which were not thought of as winter vacation destinations due to their colder climates.

Currently, college football bowl games are played from mid-December to mid-January. As the number of bowl games has increased, the number of games a team would need to win to be invited to a bowl game has decreased. With a twelve game schedule, a team may have six wins and be invited to a bowl game. As of 2007, the University of Alabama has played in and won more bowl games than any other school, with 55 appearances and 31 victories.