Atlanta, GA — The Celebration Bowl has been the HBCU’s crown jewel going into its 9th year led by Mr. John Grant since 2015. Mr. Grant’s undying dedication, hard work, and motivation to forge relationships over time have the Celebration Bowl in discussions of something you want to be a part of, and you don’t want to miss the event. Mr. Grant has been able to carve out a piece of heaven for HBCU fans to enjoy this Championship game without any distractions when it comes to other games being played normally the weekend before Christmas.
Well, that is about to change, because of the Football Bowl Series (FBS) playoffs being expanded from 4 to 12 teams, and the weekend the Celebration Bowl is normally scheduled, the FBS want that day to kick off their playoffs. For very good reasons they would want that weekend. The Cricket Wireless Celebration Bowl set a record in 2022 with 49,670 fans in attendance and 1.51M viewers watching on ABC. This year the Celebration Bowl game will be scheduled for December 14th.
Now the debates begin again on whether the MEAC has an unfair advantage over the SWAC in the Celebration Bowl, because they won’t have a break to prepare after the SWAC Championship.
Both conferences’ SWAC/MEAC football seasons end on November 23rd. The MEAC doesn’t have a conference championship game, unlike the SWAC. However, the SWAC has three teams that play games the week after the season ends, Grambling State University vs Southern University in the Bayou Classic, and Alabama State University plays vs Tuskegee University in their yearly Turkey Day Classic.
ESPN made a significant error in changing the date of the game knowing it could very well have some type of blowback that would leave many of the HBCU fans upset. We’ll wait to see how the SWAC handles their scheduling for the 2025 football season.