Chick-fil-A Bowl

The Chick-fil-A Bowl is a college football bowl game played in Atlanta at the end of the college season. Previously known as the Peach Bowl, the game has been played since 1968 and features the No. 2 ACC school against an SEC squad. It is the ninth-oldest bowl game in college football and the oldest ACC-SEC matchup, and has become known as a rivalry match for the two Southeast-based conferences. The Chick-fil-A Bowl has been held in the Georgia Dome since 1991. It is the only postseason college football game held in Georgia.

The 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl featured an Auburn win against Virginia.

It was the Georgia Lions Club who first proposed the idea of hosting a postseason college football game. They began lobbying for the game to the NCAA in 1966, but a moratorium on new games held the plans back until April 1968. As soon as it was lifted, the group resumed planning, and the first bowl -- named the Peach Bowl after its home state -- was held later that year.

The first Peach Bowl was held Dec. 30, 1968. LSU took on Florida State in a tightly contested matchup, a 31-27 win for the Tigers. Although at that time the bowl had no permanent tie-ins, the long-standing ACC-SEC rivalry was born. That game and the next three bowls took place at the Georgia Institute of Technology, after which it moved to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

For the first several years of the bowl, all proceeds were donated to the Lighthouse, one of the Lions Club's fundraisers. But attendance was poor through much of the 1970s and early 1980s, and in 1986 the Lions Club handed over the bowl and its operations to the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

Suddenly, in the early 1990s, the bowl saw a complete resurgence. The newly opened Georgia Dome offered a premier venue, and a new TV contract saw the bowl featured every year on ESPN. And in 1992, the SEC and the ACC agreed to long-term tie-ins with the bowl, making the Peach Bowl the only guaranteed showdown between the Southeast's top conferences.

In 1996, Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A became a title sponsor of the bowl, offering even more exposure and revenue. It started a new era for the game, which has seen 13 consecutive sellouts since the sale to the restaurant. After years of poor attendance, the bowl now ranks second in attendance among non-BCS bowl games. It set the then record for attendance in the Georgia Dome with the 2006 edition of the bowl, featuring Georgia and Virginia Tech.

Beginning in 2006, Chick-fil-A earned full naming rights to the game and dropped "Peach" out of its title for the first time in 40 years. That same year -- as the new deal allowed much higher payouts for participating teams -- the ACC offered the bowl its first pick of teams after the BCS bids.

Since the ACC and SEC agreed to tie-ins with the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 1992, each conference has won 10 games. The bowl also has become one of the most competitive in college football, with an average margin of victory of less than 10 points in the past 25 years.