Top College Bowls Begin, and Financial Services Brands Are Playing Hard
With today’s Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, the heart of the college football bowl season begins. Through next Monday, 16 bowl games will be played.
Financial services companies, for their part, are well-represented sponsors. Of the 34 bowl games with name sponsors, six are sponsored by financial services companies. And of the final 16 games, five are sponsored by financial services companies, which means FIs are paying up for some of the most expensive branding of the 2012-2013 college football bowl season.
The financial services-sponsored bowl games:
- San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Dec. 20
- Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, Dec. 31
- Capital One Bowl, Jan. 1
- Discover Orange Bowl, Jan. 1
- Allstate Sugar Bowl, Jan. 2
- BBVA Compass Bowl, Jan. 5
Notably, Ally Bank, the former GMAC, is no longer a bowl game sponsor. GMAC was one of the most prominent bowl game sponsors as the brand, from 2000 to 2010, of the GMAC Bowl. This bowl game, which matches teams from the Sun Belt Conference and the Mid-American Conference, is now the GoDaddy.com Bowl. At least the ads will be, er, interesting.
