Allstate Sugar Bowl to be played on New Year’s Eve

NEW ORLEANS – This year’s Allstate Sugar Bowl will be played on Saturday, December 31 – exactly 50 years after the first New Year’s Eve Sugar Bowl. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. and the game will be televised by ESPN. It will be the sixth Sugar Bowl to be played on New Year’s Eve. The game date has been adjusted due to changes with the NFL schedule. The Allstate Sugar Bowl will return to January 1 following the 2023 football season. That game will be a College Football Playoff Semifinal.

“With the recently expanded NFL schedule, there is an additional week of Monday Night Football, which conflicts with our scheduled January 2nd Sugar Bowl this year,” said Allstate Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley. “In talks with our conference partners, the Big 12 and the SEC, as well as with ESPN and the College Football Playoff, all parties agreed that a December 31 game made more sense. With New Year’s Eve being a Saturday, we hope it will provide more fans the opportunity to attend the game without work conflicts.”

The first 38 Sugar Bowls were played on January 1 (or January 2 when January 1 fell on a Sunday). The 39th annual Sugar Bowl, following the 1972 season, was the first of four in a row to be played on December 31. In that first New Year’s Eve match-up, No. 3 Oklahoma defeated No. 5 Auburn, 40-22. In addition to those four, the 62nd annual Sugar Bowl is the only other to be played on New Year’s Eve as Virginia Tech defeated Texas, 28-10, on December 31, 1995.

This year’s Allstate Sugar Bowl will feature top teams from the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12 Conference. The champions of those leagues are designated to meet in the game unless one or both qualify for the College Football Playoff, in which case the next highest-ranked teams from the respective leagues will come to New Orleans. The upcoming game will mark the 17th Sugar Bowl to pit teams from the Big 12 and SEC against each other – it is the sixth year of a contractual agreement for the two conferences to clash in the Sugar Bowl.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 100 Hall of Fame players, 51 Hall of Fame coaches and 20 Heisman Trophy winners in its 88-year history. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.2 billion into the local economy in the last decade. For more information, visit www.AllstateSugarBowl.org.