After five years of postseason action in Southern California, the LA Bowl has officially reached the end of its run. Organizers announced Thursday that Washington’s win over Boise State in December marked the final chapter for the bowl game, which had been played annually at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood since 2021.
That means college football is set to move forward with 40 bowl games for the 2026 season-though even that number could shrink in the coming years as the College Football Playoff (CFP) continues to expand and reshape the postseason landscape.
In a statement, LA Bowl organizers reflected on the brief but memorable run of the event: “After five great years, the LA Bowl at SoFi Stadium will no longer be moving forward. It has been an honor for our staff and volunteers to bring college football to one of the world’s greatest venues. We want to thank the athletes and football programs who participated and, most importantly, the college football fans who joined us over these past five seasons.”
The LA Bowl carved out a space in the postseason rotation by pairing teams from the Pac-12 and Mountain West. While the matchups rotated annually with no repeat pairings, Boise State was the only program to appear in the game more than once. The Broncos bookended the bowl’s history with appearances in both the first and final editions.
But the LA Bowl’s departure is just the latest sign of a shifting postseason environment in college football. The sport’s December calendar has become increasingly chaotic, with coaching changes, early signing day, and the transfer portal all converging during the same window. Add in the looming expansion of the CFP, and the traditional bowl structure is under more pressure than ever.
Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season, emphasized that while bowl games still have a place in the sport, their future will be shaped by demand-from both schools and host cities.
“The bowl system is a market-driven system,” Carparelli said. “Through the 100 years of bowl games, no one has ever dictated how many bowl games there are.
They’ve been strictly a function of host communities that want to host them and teams that want to participate. If at any point in time, the institutions decide-as much as we love the bowl system-we may want to participate at a different level, then the bowl system will adjust accordingly.
But no one’s in a position to say what the number is. The market will dictate it.”
That market is already showing signs of strain. More than half a dozen programs declined bowl invitations this past December, including Notre Dame, and a few games had to dip into the pool of five-win teams just to fill slots-something that used to be an exception but is now becoming more common.
There’s also the growing trend of player opt-outs in non-College Football Playoff games. Top prospects are increasingly choosing to sit out lower-tier bowls to prepare for the NFL Draft, which impacts both the quality of the matchups and the appeal of the games themselves. On top of that, bowl practices can interfere with recruiting efforts during one of the busiest times on the calendar for coaching staffs.
All of this feeds into a broader shift in how bowl games are viewed. Once considered a reward for a strong season, many of these games now feel more like obligations-especially for programs with bigger goals. With the playoff becoming the ultimate measuring stick, it’s no surprise that bowls outside the CFP are struggling to hold the same weight.
The end of the LA Bowl doesn’t signal the end of bowl season, but it does underscore a reality college football is slowly coming to terms with: the postseason is evolving, and not every game will survive the transition.