Silver Bowl

Organizers of the Outback Bowl, staged every New Year's Day at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium, have a knack for lining up college football games that garner more attention than longer-established season finales.

This time around, the matchup was between the Florida Gators versus the Penn State Nittany Lions. Florida coach Urban Meyer retired following the game at age 46, even though Penn State coach Joe Paterno, approaching 84, has been coaching for as long as Meyer has been alive — and plans to return next season after topping 400 career wins.

Florida beat Penn State 37-24, with a near-sellout 60,574 in attendance.

In last year's game, the Auburn Tigers beat the Northwestern Wildcats 38-35 in a game that went to overtime periods and set nine national records. Auburn will play for the Bowl Championship Series title Jan. 10, and that game versus the Oregon Ducks may be the only bowl this season to outshine the Outback, particularly with the drama of the two coaches in the Outback game.

“Aside from the national championship game, this might be one of the highest viewed,” says Jim McVay, Outback Bowl president/CEO. “There is a lot of interest in this game.”

For its 25th anniversary, the local bowl got unprecedented national attention. ABC is televising the game for the first time after many years on ESPN, and kickoff was two hours later at 1 p.m., giving sports fans a bit more recovery time from New Year's Eve revelry.

The former Hall of Fame Bowl's history has garnered quite a bit of local corporate support since being brought to Tampa from Birmingham, Ala., in 1986. OSI Restaurant Partners LLC, owner of Outback Steakhouse, has been title sponsor since 1995 and recently extended its commitment for four more years to the 2014 game.

That makes Outback the longest-standing sponsor of any current national college bowl, McVay says. Many other Gulf Coast-based companies remain as cosponsors, including DeBartolo Sports, Tampa Bay Trane and the Forte Group of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

“We've really developed the game and the brand into something special, especially for sponsors who are looking for visibility, exposure and hospitality,” McVay says. “We have a lot of long-term relationships.”

In return, bowl organizers offer plenty of thank-yous to supporters throughout the year, including a kickoff party in early September and a barbecue on the stadium field in early October. An invitation-only luncheon is also held in October featuring a prominent figure from ESPN as keynote speaker (this year it was sideline reporter Erin Andrews, who hails from Tampa).

ESPN and ABC, both owned by the Walt Disney Co., added extra local flavor to the 2011 Outback Bowl. Jon Gruden, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach turned “Monday Night Football” analyst, called this year's game with ESPN announcer Mike Tirico.

“That's as good as it gets,” McVay says. He adds that the Outback Bowl has generated an estimated $740 million economic impact on the Tampa Bay area over the last 25 years and offers the seventh-highest payout among college bowls to participating athletic departments, at $3.4 million per team this season.

“This community has embraced college football,” he says. “They know what it means in terms of economic impact and showcasing our community nationally. You can't buy the exposure that a New Year's Day bowl game gives a community.”

The Outback Bowl gets third pick from the Southeastern and Big Ten conferences each year, yet teams and fans view it as anything but a consolation game. Between the warm climate, Clearwater Beach and Busch Gardens events during bowl week and a New Year's Eve parade through Ybor City, the game remains an attractive award.