Comedian Jimmy Kimmel told a new kind of joke on his show Wednesday night:
Which is the only college football postseason bowl game to be named after a person and not a weed eater, cheese snack or other corporate sponsor?
The answer is the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl to be played Dec. 18 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California
“That’s right,” Kimmel said on ABC. “That’s the name of the bowl game. This is history in the making. Never before has a bowl game been named after a human being, and Papa John’s doesn’t count. He’s barely human.”
The former John Hancock Bowl in El Paso also doesn’t count because it was named after an insurance company sponsor, not the American Revolution leader. Otherwise Kimmel is serious: That will be the name of this game, which will match the No. 1 selection from the Mountain West Conference vs. the No. 5 selection from the Pac-12.
Kimmel and SoFi Stadium announced the deal Wednesday, saying they have entered into a multi-year partnership to appoint Kimmel as the official naming rights partner of the LA Bowl, a new bowl game that was canceled last season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The game will be televised by ABC and will be among the first of 40-plus postseason games scheduled for 2021-22.
Kimmel said he knows all about them.
“There are few American traditions more exciting than a college football bowl game – the tradition, the pageantry and most significantly the sponsor names,” Kimmel said. “There are so many memorable colorful names – the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, the RoofClaim.com Boca Raton bowl, the Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl, the LendingTree bowl, the Cheese-It bowl. The list goes on and on. And ever since I was 52, which was last year, I have dreamed of having a college football bowl game named after me. And tonight I am thrilled to announce that dream is finally coming true.”
Title sponsorships for minor bowl games such as the LA Bowl generally can be relatively inexpensive for all the publicity they generate. For example, in 2018, Elk Grove Village in Illinois agreed to pay $300,000 to name the Bahamas Bowl as the "Makers Wanted" Bahamas Bowl. That is the village's marketing slogan, and the goal was to attract manufacturers to its industrial park by O'Hare International Airport.
Before the game was even played, the mayor of Elk Grove Village said that the sponsorship already had generated millions of dollars’ worth of publicity.
The LA Bowl is owned by SoFi Stadium, which is part of the Hollywood Park empire of Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a news release, SoFi Stadium noted that Kimmel will work with the bowl game’s community partners, such as Inglewood’s One For All to support youth through social programs.
“Stan Kroenke designed Hollywood Park to be a sports and entertainment destination for Angelenos and visitors from across the world to enjoy,” Jason Gannon, the game’s executive director said in a statement Wednesday. “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."
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
