The Cure Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game that has been played in December of each year since 2015 in Orlando, Florida. It is currently held at FBC Mortgage Stadium, and in the past has been held at Camping World Stadium and Exploria Stadium. The Cure Bowl is so named to promote awareness and research of breast cancer, with proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The Cure Bowl usually features teams from the American Athletic Conference and the Sun Belt Conference. Since 2024, it has been sponsored by the health care employment website StaffDNA and officially known as the StaffDNA Cure Bowl; previous sponsors include AutoNation (2015–2018), FBC Mortgage (2019–2020), Tailgreeter (2021), Duluth Trading Company (2022), and Avocados from Mexico (2023).
The game has tie-ins with the American Athletic Conference (The American) and the Sun Belt Conference. The inaugural game took place on December 19, 2015,[2] featuring the San Jose State Spartans from the Mountain West Conference and the Georgia State Panthers of the Sun Belt Conference. A Mountain West team was invited to the bowl due to The American not having enough bowl-eligible teams to fill the tie-in.[3]
During the planning stages, it was originally proposed to hold the game at Bright House Networks Stadium (now known as FBC Mortgage Stadium) on the campus of UCF.[4] However, it was later decided to hold the game at the newly-renovated Camping World Stadium in downtown Orlando, joining the Camping World Bowl and the Citrus Bowl as annual bowl games at the venue.[5] The game was at held Camping World Stadium in 2015–2018 and 2020,[6] and at Exploria Stadium in 2019, 2021–2022.[7] Beginning in 2023, it will move to FBC Mortgage Stadium at UCF.
The game was acquired by ESPN Events in May 2020.[8] The 2020 edition of the bowl, between Liberty and Coastal Carolina, became the first Cure Bowl to go to overtime.
From its inaugural playing in 2015 through 2018, the game was sponsored by AutoNation and was known as the AutoNation Cure Bowl.[9] In December 2019, FBC Mortgage became the new title sponsor, making the game the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl.[10] In December 2020, FBC Mortgage renewed its sponsorship of the bowl.[11] On December 2, 2021, digital marketplace Tailgreeter became the new sponsor of the bowl, making the game the Tailgreeter Cure Bowl.[12] On June 29, 2022, Duluth Trading Company was announced as the new title sponsor for the Duluth Trading Cure Bowl.[13] On October 31, 2023, Avocados From Mexico, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association, became the new title sponsor of the game.[14] On May 28, 2024, StaffDNA became the new title sponsor of the game.[15]
All rankings are taken from the AP Poll prior to the game being played.
Source:[16]
Source:[17]
Updated through the December 2023 edition (9 games, 18 total appearances).
Won (5): Appalachian State, Arkansas State, San Jose State, Troy, Tulane
Lost (7): Georgia Southern, Louisiana, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, UCF, UTSA, Western Kentucky
Updated through the December 2023 edition (9 games, 18 total appearances).
Independent appearances: Liberty (2019, 2020)
Source:[18]
The game was initially televised by CBS Sports Network, making it one of the few bowl games to not be televised by an ESPN network. Following the bowl's acquisition by ESPN Events in 2020, broadcasting moved to ESPN.[19]