City: Glendale, AZ

Category: Spectator Sports

Telephone: (480) 350-0911

Address: 1 Cardinals Dr.

Description: The Fiesta Bowl is part of the College Football Bowl Alliance, formed in 1997 to create a system to guarantee a true national championship game each year. The championship game rotates among the four members of the alliance, which also include the Sugar, Orange, and Rose bowls.The idea that the Valley should have a football bowl game was first floated in a speech by ASU president B. Homer Durham at an athletic awards banquet in 1968. Boosters seized on the idea and formed a group called the Arizona Sports Foundation. They prepared a pitch emphasizing that the Rose Bowl was the only bowl game being played outside the South, that Arizona’s climate would be a natural ally in the game’s success, and that a number of worthy Western Athletic Conference teams had been overlooked by the existing bowls. They also framed it as a charity event that would aid the fight against drug abuse. They made the pitch to the NCAA in 1970 and were turned down. The next year, though, the NCAA gave its approval. Since then the Fiesta Bowl has seen its share of controversy, most recently with key members of the nonprofit organization placed under investigation for glad-handing with lobbyists and politicians.The first Fiesta Bowl was played December 27, 1971, with ASU beating Florida State before a crowd of 51,098. Over the years the Fiesta Bowl spawned dozens of auxiliary events, including the Fiesta Bowl Parade, 4 tennis events, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and a gigantic New Year’s block party in downtown Tempe. In 2006 the Fiesta Bowl moved across the Valley to Glendale’s new University of Phoenix Stadium. Its more notable games include the 43-42 overtime victory by Boise State over Oklahoma in 2007, which is widely considered one of the wildest games in NCAA postseason history.