MEAC/SWAC Challenge presented by Disney

The MEAC/SWAC Challenge presented by Disney is an annual college football game featuring two Historically Black Colleges. The game features a team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference against an opponent from the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The two teams face off in Orlando, Fla., each year at the beginning of the season. The Walt Disney Company became a presenting sponsor in 2008.

The first game took place in 2005, when South Carolina State became the first team to win the challenge. The defending champion is Bethune-Cookman, which defeated Alabama State in 2012.

The MEAC/SWAC Challenge began in 2005 as a way to highlight HBCU football. The game was held at Legion Field, in Alabama, and featured the MEAC's South Carolina State against Alabama State. South Carolian State won that first matchup, 27-14. Since then, the MEAC has dominated the series, winning four games to the SWAC's two.

In 2008, game organizers decided to move the game from Legion Field to the Florida Citrus Bowl, in Orlando. The decision was met with much criticism because the Citrus Bowl already hosts another traditional HBCU event, the Florida Classic, featuring Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M universities. In addition, after the move was announced, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would drop its sponsorship of the Florida Classic and begin sponsoring the MEAC/SWAC Challenge.

Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M, the two teams involved in the Florida Classic, said they would boycott the MEAC/SWAC Challenge as long as it was held in Orlando. Bethune-Cookman was scheduled to participate in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge in 2008, but the school refused to play because of that move and was replaced by Hampton. In 2011, Bethune-Cookman reversed its decision and played in the matchup against Prairie View.

The MSC attracted its largest attendance in its final year in Alabama, when 30,106 fans watched Southern defeat Florida A&M. Its largest attendance since moving to Orlando was in 2009, when 21,367 people attended.

The Florida Citrus Bowl is a stadium in Orlando, Fla., that hosts both the Capital One Bowl and the Champs Sports 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 MEAC/SWAC Challenge, the Florida Classic 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.