Champs Sports Bowl

The Champs Sports Bowl is a college football bowl game held every year in Orlando, Fla. The bowl was founded in 1990 and now is run by Florida Citrus Sports. The bowl matches up opponents from the ACC and the Big East -- usually the third pick from the ACC and the second from the Big East.

Florida State won the 2011 edition of the Champs Sports Bowl, overcoming a 14-point deficit to beat Notre Dame, 18-14.

The Champs Sports Bowl came about out of desire for a second bowl game in Miami, alongside the long-standing Orange Bowl. Raycom Sports joined with Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga, also the owner of Blockbuster, to gain both a title sponsor and a stadium.

The first bowl -- then called the Blockbuster Bowl -- was held at the Dolphins' Joe Robbie Stadium in 1990 and was a huge success. More than 74,000 attended as Florida State beat Penn State, 24-17. But without the local draw in the second year (and the appeal of Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno), attendance plummeted, dropping down to 46,000.

The game was moved to New Year's Day in 1993, though the change did little to help attendance. Three years later, the bowl faced yet another major adjustment as the Orange Bowl moved to Joe Robbie Stadium in 1996. The game also had several title sponsors over the years and as a result changed names often: Carquest 1994-97, Micron PC 1998-2000, and Mazda 2002-03 (Champs Sports signed on in 2004).

Finally, in 2001, after years of poor attendance (sometimes as low as 21,000), Florida Citrus Sports took over the game. FCS already ran the Capital One Bowl and the Florida Classic, so the organization had plenty of experience running high-profile football games. It decided immediately to move the bowl to Orlando, and the game found a new home in the Citrus Bowl, which also hosts FCS' Capital One Bowl.

For the first few years after the move, attendance still was low. The game was played the week before Christmas, but it never attracted more than 29,000 attendants in any year. In 2006, it moved to the days after Christmas and has been much more successful. That change came under the terms of a new TV deal with ESPN, which agreed to show the game in prime time.

Though the ESPN deal and more attractive post-Christmas date helped, the bowl's 2006 agreement with teams from the ACC and the Big Ten also added a huge amount of prestige and support to the bowl. Usually the fourth pick from the ACC (which includes local draws Florida State or Miami) would take on the fourth or fifth pick from the Big Ten.

In 2009, the Champs Sports Bowl signed a new agreement with the ACC and, rather than renewing with the Big Ten, created a new tie-in with the Big East. In doing so, the bowl has a better chance at high-profile teams: It will receive the second pick among Big East teams and the third among ACC squads.

Since 2005, the bowl has never dipped below 30,000 fans, and since 2006, it has seen at least 40,000 at each game. The 2009 edition of the bowl -- which saw Wisconsin defeat Miami -- recorded the second-highest attendance total ever, 56,742, trailing only the inaugural match.

In 2011, the Champs Sports Bowl exercised its option to replace its Big East pick with Notre Dame, setting up a match-up between the Fighting Irish and Florida State. Notre Dame jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the game, but FSU scored 18 unanswered points to win, 18-14.

The Florida Citrus Bowl is a stadium in Orlando, Fla., that hosts both the Champs Sports Bowl and the Capital One Bowl. It also houses the UFL's Florida Tuskers.

The stadium was built and opened in 1936 as a college stadium with a capacity of 8,900. The first game was held in 1947, between Catawba and Maryville. It has since been expanded and renovated many times -- the first in 1968, the latest in 2002. Some of those changes included increasing the capacity to 70,000 (done in 1989), adding a new video screen and sound system, and building press boxes and upper decks.

The bowl games held during the 2009-10 bowl season were criticized heavily after poor field conditions led to two player injuries, so the surface was replaced with AstroTurf before the 2010 bowls.

The stadium also hosts the Florida Classic -- the college football game between Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman -- and hosted matches for the 1994 FIFA World Cup as well as several other international or MLS soccer games. It hosts Monster Jam shows each year, as well as events in AMA Supercross and Super Bowl of Motorsports. In 2007, previous attendance records were smashed when the stadium housed Wrestlemania XXIV, with 74,635 attending.