Another College Football Bowl Game Was Cancelled Tuesday
For the second time in the last week, and third time in the last year, a college football bowl game has been cancelled moving forward.
The GameAbove Sports Bowl, which was played in Detroit for the last 29 seasons, is folding, according to On3 college football insider Brett McMurphy. The contest, which changed sponsors multiple times over nearly three decades in existence, joins the LA Bowl and Bahamas Bowl as recently-extinct college football postseason contests.
More on the end of the GameAbove Sports Bowl
Founded in 1997 as the Motor City Bowl, the GameAbove Sports Bowl was played at the Pontiac Silverdome, the old home of the Detroit Lions, until 2002, when it moved to Ford Field, the Lions' current stadium.
The name was changed to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in 2009, a moniker it held through the 2013 season, after which the Quick Lane Bowl emerged as a de facto replacement starting in 2014. The game went by the Quick Lane Bowl from 2014-23 before becoming the GameAbove Sports Bowl the last two seasons.
The ACC had a tie-in with the game from 2014-19 and the Big Ten had one from 2020-2025, with a MAC school typically facing a program from either one of those major conferences.
Northwestern won the final GameAbove Sports Bowl, 34-7 over Central Michigan, on Dec. 26, 2025. Players who took home MVP of the annual bowl in its different iterations over 29 years include NFL first-round quarterbacks Daniel Jones, Byron Leftwich, Chad Pennington and Kenny Pickett, 2025 Heisman Trophy finalist Diego Pavia (playing at New Mexico State in 2022), running backs DeAngelo Williams and James Conner and wide receiver T.Y. Hilton.
Bowl season is changing
Prior to the 2025 college football season, the Bahamas Bowl was terminated and eventually replaced by the XBox Bowl in Frisco, Texas.
Last week, the LA Bowl announced it was shutting down after five seasons. There is no word yet on whether the LA Bowl or GameAbove Sports Bowl will be replaced on the college football postseason schedule.