The Funniest College Football Bowl Game Names of All Time

The funniest bowl game names of 2026-27 are already on the schedule: the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on December 26, the Old El Paso Sun Bowl on New Year’s Eve and the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop on January 2.

The FBS bowl season starts on Tuesday, December 15, with the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama, and ends on Monday, January 25, 2027, with the national championship at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. In between come 36 bowl games outside the College Football Playoff, six playoff bowls and four first-round playoff games on campus. Of the 36, 26 are listed with a sponsor’s name in front of the word “bowl”, and a few of those names are hard to say with a straight face.

Below are the weirdest names on this season’s schedule, the ones that dropped off it, the strangest from bowl history, and the full list of 2026-27 names with last season’s next to each.

The funniest bowl game names of 2026-27

These six are on the official 2026-27 schedule published by Coca-Cola Bowl Season, the bowl games’ own association, read on October 26, 2026.

Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop

That is the full official name. The Arizona Bowl announced the deal with Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop, the drink brand co-founded by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, on May 6, 2024. Before that the Tucson game was sponsored by NOVA Home Loans from 2015 to 2019, Offerpad in 2020 and Barstool Sports from 2021 to 2023.

This season’s edition is on Saturday, January 2, 2027, at 4:30 pm ET at Casino del Sol Stadium in Tucson, on The CW.

Duke’s Mayo Bowl

Charlotte’s bowl was established in 2002. Continental Tires, Meineke Car Care and Belk all had their names on it before Duke’s Mayo took over in 2020.

The sponsor came with a tradition. The winning coach gets a jar of mayonnaise dumped on his head, a twist on the Gatorade bath. The 2026 game is on Saturday, December 26, at 3:30 pm ET at Bank of America Stadium, on ABC.

Old El Paso Sun Bowl

This is the new one. On September 17, 2026, the Sun Bowl Association named Old El Paso, the Tex-Mex food brand from General Mills, as its title sponsor. Last season it was the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, a name Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes first put on the game in 2019.

The first Sun Bowl was played on January 1, 1935, between two high school teams, and it has been a college game since 1936. Its sponsors run from John Hancock (1986) through Norwest, Wells Fargo, Vitalis, Brut and Hyundai (2010 to 2018). This season’s game is on Thursday, December 31, at 2:00 pm ET at Sun Bowl Stadium, on CBS.

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

The Boise game was the Humanitarian Bowl until 2011, when the Idaho Potato Commission bought the name. The contract, released under Idaho’s open records law, set the price at $2.49 million over six years.

The name is still on the 2026-27 schedule. The game is on Monday, December 21, at 2:30 pm ET at Albertsons Stadium.

Pop-Tarts Bowl

The Orlando game has had more names than most. It was first played on December 28, 1990, in Miami as the Blockbuster Bowl, then became the Carquest Bowl and the MicronPC Bowl before moving to Orlando in 2001. There it was the Tangerine Bowl, the Champs Sports Bowl, the Russell Athletic Bowl, the Camping World Bowl and the Cheez-It Bowl, and it was renamed the Pop-Tarts Bowl ahead of the 2023 season.

Its signature moment is the toasting of an edible Pop-Tarts mascot. For 2025 the sponsor raised the number of edible mascots to six, from three the year before. This season’s Pop-Tarts Bowl is on Tuesday, December 29, at 5:30 pm ET at Camping World Stadium.

Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl and Wasabi Fenway Bowl

Two baseball parks, two odd sponsors. The Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl is at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Saturday, December 26, at noon ET. Two hours later the Wasabi Fenway Bowl kicks off at Fenway Park in Boston.

The names that are gone for 2026-27

Sponsor deals end, and the name goes with them. Comparing the 2025-26 schedule with the 2026-27 one shows these changes:

• Citrus Bowl: last season the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl; the 2026-27 schedule lists it as the Citrus Bowl, with no sponsor.
• Boca Raton Bowl: last season the Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans; listed this season as the Boca Raton Bowl.
• Military Bowl: the Go Bowling Military Bowl last season, the Freedom Mortgage Military Bowl this season.
• Frisco Bowl: the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl last season; listed as the Frisco Bowl this season.
• Las Vegas Bowl and Holiday Bowl: last season the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl and the Trust & Will Holiday Bowl; both are listed without a sponsor this season.
• Myrtle Beach Bowl: presented by Engine last season; listed as the Myrtle Beach Bowl this season.

Four of last season’s games are not on the 2026-27 schedule at all: the Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk, the Xbox Bowl, the GameAbove Sports Bowl in Detroit and the Rate Bowl. Five names are on it that were not there last season: the Frisco Football Classic, the TransPerfect San Juan Bowl, the Puerto Rico Bowl in Bayamón, the SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego and the Cactus Bowl in Tempe.

The weirdest bowl game names in history

Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl (1990-1997)

“What’s a Poulan-Weed Eater?” a Seattle Times story asked in September 1990, the year the Shreveport game took the name of a weed eater maker based in the same city. Poulan signed for $250,000 to keep the Independence Bowl in business, and it was the bowl’s first title sponsor. The 1997 game was the last under its name.

The Independence Bowl kept collecting odd sponsors. In February 2014 it became the Duck Commander Independence Bowl, after the Duck Commander company of the Robertson family, of Duck Dynasty fame. Radiance Technologies signed a five-year deal in 2020, later extended through 2025, and its name is on the 2026 game: Tuesday, December 22, at 8:30 pm ET at Independence Stadium.

Refrigerator Bowl (1948-1956)

Each December from 1948 to 1956, the Reitz Bowl in Evansville, Indiana, hosted the Refrigerator Bowl. The city was known then as the “Refrigerator Capital of the World”, with factories including International Harvester, Servel and Seeger turning out 3,800 refrigerators a day. Players ran onto the field through a refrigerator frame.

The Evansville Junior Chamber of Commerce ran the game as a fundraiser for the YMCA’s Camp Carson. On August 31, 1957, the Evansville Courier declared the “Refrigerator Bowl Game is Dead”, citing a lack of public support or a new sponsor.

Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl (2023)

The Cure Bowl raises money for cancer research, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation among the beneficiaries. For its ninth edition, on December 16, 2023, the title went to Avocados From Mexico, announced by ESPN Events, which owns and operates the game.

StaffDNA took the name for the 2024 game with a five-year deal. The 2026 StaffDNA Cure Bowl is on Tuesday, December 22, at 5:00 pm ET at Acrisure Bounce House in Orlando.

Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans (2025)

The newest entry on this list lasted one game. ESPN Events announced Bush’s Beans as title sponsor on November 20, 2025, and the December 23 game that season was officially the Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans. The 2026-27 schedule lists the game as the Boca Raton Bowl, with no sponsor.

Why bowl games carry sponsor names

A title sponsor pays to put its name in front of the bowl’s. In 1990, by the Seattle Times’ count, 12 bowl games had title sponsors and seven did not, and the Rose Bowl was the only one of the seven that said it was not interested.

It started with towns. The Refrigerator Bowl was run by Evansville’s Junior Chamber of Commerce and named for what the city’s factories made. Who had the first company name on a bowl depends on who you ask: the Citrus Bowl calls its 1983 rebrand, with the Florida Department of Citrus as title sponsor, college football’s first title sponsorship; the Sun Bowl says the same of its John Hancock deal; and the Seattle Times gave it to USF&G’s Sugar Bowl deal for the 1987 game.

The money was the point. John Hancock had the Sun Bowl renamed the John Hancock Bowl because papers kept dropping its name, and its consultant told the Seattle Times the company put in about $1.6 million and got back the equivalent of $4.8 million in print advertising.

A name lasts as long as the contract. That is why the table below carries last season’s name next to this season’s: where the 2026-27 schedule lists a game with no sponsor, a new one can still be announced before kickoff.

Every 2026-27 bowl game name

Dates and kickoff times are Eastern, as listed on the official 2026-27 schedule on October 26, 2026. A name marked no sponsor listed is how that schedule shows it today. The four first-round playoff games, on December 18 and 19 on the campuses of the higher seeds, carry no bowl name.

The FCS season has its own bowl a few days earlier: the Cricket Celebration Bowl presented by Toyota, between the MEAC and the SWAC, on Saturday, December 12, at noon ET at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Our college football predictions cover the bowl games once the matchups are set, and the playoff gets its own page of College Football Playoff odds and predictions.

_Sources: 2026-27 bowl schedule, Coca-Cola Bowl Season (bowlseason.com), read October 26, 2026; 2025-26 bowl schedule, same site, read October 23, 2026; College Football Playoff schedule and 12-team format pages (collegefootballplayoff.com), read October 23, 2026; ESPN college football postseason scoreboards for 2025 and 2026, read October 23, 2026; official sites of the Old El Paso Sun Bowl (history page), Freedom Mortgage Military Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl (history page), Pop-Tarts Bowl (history page) and Citrus Bowl (80 years of impact), read October 23, 2026; General Mills via Business Wire, September 17, 2026; ESPN press room, November 20, 2025; ESPN Events, 2023; Seattle Times, September 9, 1990; KSLA, February 26, 2014; Evansville Living, November 8, 2022; Capital Press via PotatoPro, August 25, 2011; Arizona Daily Star, May 6, 2024; SportsLogos.net, May 6, 2024; Virginia Tech athletics, December 19, 2024; USA Today network via AOL; Sports Illustrated; StaffDNA.