Mountain West will move its marquee bowl slot from Las Vegas to L.A.
The Mountain West Conference’s football champion is finally going to get a change of scenery.
The league announced a new partnership Wednesday afternoon with a bowl game at the NFL’s Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park that begins in 2020. The annual bowl game, which has yet to be named, will pit the Mountain West’s best against a team from the Pac-12, and it will replace the conference’s previous affiliation with the Las Vegas Bowl.
“We’re very pleased with our bowl lineup for the next cycle,” Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said in a press release. “We feel we have an exceptional group of bowl partners. We’re adding a game at the new, state-of-the-art stadium in Los Angeles, which is very exciting. Plus, we’ll be in some familiar locations with many longtime bowl partners.
“These partnerships are going to provide the Mountain West with attractive bowl destinations, exciting matchups and an improved financial situation for our members.”
Since the conference’s inception in 1999, the Mountain West has had a contract with the Las Vegas Bowl, and the game has had the first selection of the conference since 2006. A Mountain West team has played in Vegas every year except 2015, when Utah played BYU.
While the switch to the Los Angeles bowl adds a wrinkle of excitement to the 2020 season, the conference’s ultimate goal is to represent the Group of Five in a New Year’s Six bowl.
The Mountain West’s other bowls for the 2020-25 cycle are: Famous Idaho Potato (vs. MAC), Hawaii (vs. AAC or CUSA), New Mexico (vs. CUSA), Arizona (vs. MAC) and one bowl from among the 16 ESPN-owned bowls, likely held in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The conference will have six guaranteed bowls and retain its secondary position with Cheez-It (vs. Big Ten or Big 12) and another bowl expected to be announced in the near future.
The Mountain West’s 2019 bowl lineup includes the Las Vegas Bowl (vs. Pac-12), Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (vs. MAC), New Mexico Bowl (vs. CUSA), Arizona Bowl (vs. Sun Belt) and Hawaii Bowl (vs. BYU or AAC). The conference also has secondary positions with the Redbox Bowl, Cheez-It Bowl and Frisco Bowl.
Neutral-site title game?
Thompson said the conference has floated the idea of a neutral-site championship game to its coaches and athletic directors.
If the game isn’t hosted by a divisional champion, it could be played in either Los Angeles or Las Vegas, Thompson said Wednesday during a press conference at Mountain West media days.
“We’ve talked about that in the last couple meetings,” Thompson said. “There’s interest in exploring it, no question.”
The league could move its championship game to a neutral site as soon as the 2020 season.
This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 1:55 PM.
