Tuesday was a big day at Toyota Stadium with an early-afternoon press conference where the city of Frisco, ESPN, and FC Dallas officially announced the Frisco Bowl with Toyota Stadium (capacity: 20,500 for football) as the site on December 20, 2017.
The game, which was played at Marlins Park in Miami for the past three seasons as the Miami Beach Bowl, is one of 14 bowl games owned and operated by ESPN Events, a division of the all-sports network. The inaugural Frisco Bowl will be televised live on ESPN at 7:00 PM CT.
This year’s game will pit a team from the American Athletic Conference (AAC), a league of which Southern Methodist University is a member, against an opponent from a second conference to-be-determined.
“It was easy to put a bowl game here,” said Clint Overby, ESPN Vice President of Events. “It’ll be really special.”
The Frisco Bowl becomes the fourth bowl game in the DFW Metroplex, joining the Armed Forces Bowl (Fort Worth), the Cotton Bowl (Arlington), and the Heart of Dallas Bowl (Dallas). Since 2010, Toyota Stadium has also hosted the Division I Football Championship or the title game of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). That game returns to Frisco again on January 6, 2018.
Also at Tuesday’s press conference was Jeff Cheney, Frisco’s new mayor, Scott Draper, the AAC associate commissioner for football, and FC Dallas president Dan Hunt.
“What an exciting day for Frisco,” Cheney said. “You can’t do an event like this without great partners. We are a sports-driven town, and we’re committed as a city to making this a world-class experience. I look forward to this being a great game and for all the schools that enjoy it.”
Overby said negotiations are currently underway to secure a title sponsor for the game. However, the ESPN official added that no matter what company puts its name on the game, the Frisco brand will still play a prominent role in the title.
And for Hunt, whose FCD team is one of only two squads in Major League Soccer with just one loss so far this season, he’s pretty ecstatic about now having a bowl game call Frisco home.
“Bowl games have a special place in my heart and I’m very excited about being able to host one,” Hunt said. “It’s a great honor for us and for the city.”
