Your Reward For Winning the Mountain West Football Title? The Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl.
The late-night talk show host has scored the naming rights to the Mountain West’s top bowl game.
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Only in college football.
In what can only be described as the latest iteration in a colorful college football tradition, comedian Jimmy Kimmel will have his name on Mountain West football’s biggest postseason stage for the foreseeable future.
The LA Bowl, which was set to debut at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood last December before being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is now officially the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. Naturally, Kimmel made the announcement during a monologue on his show last night, in which Kimmel also discussed the international summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Joe Exotic.
As you might expect, Kimmel joked that this is the first time a bowl game has been named after a human being — ribbing “Papa” John Schnatter in the process — though depending on your tolerance for technicalities this might not actually be true: The John Hancock Bowl was played at El Paso’s Sun Bowl from 1987 to 1993, though that referred more directly to John Hancock Financial than the historical figure.
In a subsequent release from the LA Bowl itself, executive director Steve Gannon also said, “we cannot think of a better way to bring sports and entertainment together than by collaborating with celebrated late-night host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel on our collegiate bowl game. Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl will not only bring an incredible game day experience to fans, but it will also focus on supporting our community 365 days a year.”
The bowl game will host the Mountain West champion and the number-five selection from the Pac-12 at 4:30 PM on Saturday, December 18, and will be broadcast on Kimmel’s network, ABC.
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