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Washington’s victory over Boise State last December turned out to be the LA Bowl’s final game. Organizers announced Thursday they’re pulling the plug on the five-year-old bowl, which means we’re down to 40 bowl games heading into the 2026 season – and that number could keep dropping.
“After five great years, the LA Bowl at Sofi Stadium will no longer be moving forward. It has been an honor for our staff and volunteers to bring college football to one of the world’s greatest venues,” organizers said in a statement. “We want to thank the athletes and football programs who participated and, most importantly, the college football fans who joined us over these past five seasons.”
The game had featured Pac-12 and Mountain West teams since kicking off in 2021 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Boise State showed up twice during that run, but no matchup ever repeated itself.
The Bowl System’s Identity Crisis
Here’s the thing — bowl season’s looking shakier than it has in decades. December’s become an absolute mess with the expanded playoff, and then there’s the January transfer portal window making everything more complicated.
More than a half-dozen programs turned down bowl invitations last December. Notre Dame was among them. A couple games even had to use five-win teams because there weren’t enough schools meeting the traditional six-win requirement.
That’s not a good sign.
Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli told The Athletic that the market’s always controlled how many bowls exist, not some arbitrary number handed down from above. “The bowl system is a market-driven system. Through the 100 years of bowl games, no one has ever dictated how many bowl games there are,” he explained. “They’ve been strictly a function of host communities that want to host them and teams that want to participate.”
He’s got a point — if schools stop showing interest, bowls will naturally fade away. The system adjusts itself.
Player opt-outs keep piling up in non-playoff games, which kills the competitive aspect these bowls are supposed to offer. Coaches are also dealing with bowl practices interfering with recruiting, which is pretty much their lifeblood during that time of year.
College football’s playoff obsession has changed everything. Bowl games used to be the reward for a solid season — something teams actually wanted. Now they’re often seen as an inconvenience standing between players and their NFL prep or transfer decisions.
With the College Football Playoff potentially expanding even further down the road, smaller bowls like the LA Bowl are finding it harder to justify their existence. The calculus has changed, and not in their favor.
