John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
It has been rumored for quite some time now that Cowboys Stadium, lovingly called “Jerryworld” or “the Death Star” by those in the DFW area, would be the location of the first ever college football playoff championship game.
Now, ESPNDallas.com is reporting that Cowboys Stadium will, in fact, host the newly named College Football Playoff’s championship game.The game will be played Monday, Jan. 12, and will pit the winners of the national semifinals (the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl winners) against each other. The semifinal games will be played on New Year’s Day.
Initially, several cities were rumored to be putting together bids for the championship game, including Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, Miami and Phoenix. However Arlington and Tampa, Florida, were the only two cities that submitted bids. According to one ESPN source, the final vote, “Was closer than a lot of people thought it would be.”
The championship game will rotate homes, but the 2016 site has yet to be decided. One thing has been determined though, as the championship game will be played on the second Monday of January each year.
Joining the Rose and Sugar Bowls as semifinal games are the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Chick-Fil-A Bowl, and they, like the championship game, will rotate.
In the same article, ESPN provided a schedule of which bowls will host semifinals each year.
Rose and Sugar bowls: Jan. 1, 2015, Jan. 1, 2018, Jan. 1, 2021 and Jan. 1, 2024.
Orange and Cotton bowls: Jan. 1, 2016, Jan. 1, 2019, Jan. 1, 2022 and Jan. 1, 2025.
Fiesta and Chick-fil-A bowls: Jan. 2, 2017, Jan. 1, 2020, Jan. 2, 2023 and Jan. 1, 2026.
According to the report, the Holiday Bowl also applied to be a semifinal game, but was not included.
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