Information about the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl

By Tim Riordan@UBBullRun Dec 4, 2013, 4:37pm EST

When the MAC takes over the Ford Field for their conference championship they are also warming up the venue for the "Pizza Bowl". The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was founded as the Ford Motor City Bow in 1997 and simply as the name "Motor City Bowl" from 1998 until 2009. It's a great venue as Ford Field is home to the NFL's Detroit Lions, and played host to Super Bowl XL.

The Bowl features a bowl-eligible team from the Mid-American Conference and the 9th bowl-eligible team from the Big Ten Conference. Usually the Big Ten is short on Bowl Eligible teams and when that happens the Sun Belt conference sends one of their squads. This season it looks like once again it will be a MAC versus the Belt affair.

In it's history only twice has the Big Ten sent a team and in both cases it was Purdue.

It has the distinction of being the only Division I college bowl game played in the Midwest United States. Though it's a Bowl game that may soon be rendered extinct by the Detroit Lion's and Big Ten as the two partner to create a P5 bowl game.

Detroit is not what you think about as a great winter get away but the city is not without its charms and has always hosted a great bowl experience. The Little Caesars / Motor City Bowl has always drawn well. Usually the game has drawn 30-45 thousand fans and has totaled 714,665 from it's inception in 1997 to today.

It's also a good enough host city to entice the B1G to steal our venue.

The 2007 Motor City Bowl between Purdue and Central Michigan drew more than 60,000 fans.