| Stadium |
Independence Stadium |
| Location |
Shreveport, Louisiana |
| Operated |
1976-present |
| Conference Tie-ins |
Big 12, SEC |
| Previous Conference Tie-ins |
Southland (1976-1981) |
| Payout |
US$1,100,000 |
| 2006 Matchup |
Alabama vs. Oklahoma State (31-34) |
| 2007 Matchup |
Alabama vs. Colorado (Dec. 30) |
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Independence Bowl History
The PetroSun Independence Bowl is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I college football bowl game that is played annually at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana, so named because it was inaugurated in the United States bicentennial year, 1976.
For its first five years, the game pitted the champion of the Southland Conference, then a Division I conference before the NCAA split the division into Division I-A (now the Bowl Subdivision) and Division I-AA (now the Championship Subdivision), against an at-large opponent. It then moved to inviting two at-large teams, until 1995 when it began featuring a Southeastern Conference school against an at-large opponent.
Since 1998 the game has normally featured a matchup between teams representing the Big 12 Conference and the SEC. Teams from other conferences are included only if one of those leagues does not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill its spot, such as in 2004 when Miami (Ohio) played instead of a SEC squad.
In 1990, the contest became one of the earliest college bowl games to use a title sponsor, becoming the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl. Poulan (then a division of AB Electrolux Home Products, now Husqvarna AB) sponsored the game until 1996, leading some fans to label it the "Weedwacker Bowl." (The term Weedwacker Bowl is still used as a disparaging term for any second-rank bowl game, the kind the top teams have to play in if they can't make one of the major bowl games.)
Newell Rubbermaid's Sanford brand of writing products took over sponsorship from 1998 until 2000, while MainStay Investments sponsored from 2001 to 2003. In January 2005, in what was widely perceived as a publicity stunt, the Deja Vu chain of "gentlemen's clubs" offered to become the title sponsor. The offer was rejected.
The Independence Bowl's three-year search for a title sponsor ended on August 21, 2006 when PetroSun Inc., a Phoenix, Arizona-based company that provides services and products to suppliers of oil and gas, agreed to become the bowl's sponsor. The deal runs from through 2008 with an option for 2009.
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