Tobacco Bowl

This article is about the defunct college football bowl game. For the tobacco pipe, see smoking pipe (tobacco).
Tobacco Bowl (defunct)
Tobacco Festival Bowl
The Tobacco Bowl in 1949
StadiumCity Stadium
LocationRichmond, Virginia
Operated1949–1982
Conference tie-insNone
Sponsors
National Tobacco Festival

The Tobacco Bowl (or Tobacco Festival Bowl) was a college football game held in Richmond, Virginia from 1949 to 1982.[1][2] Despite its "bowl" designation, it was not a postseason game, but an in-season neutral-site contest that typically featured regional rivals from Virginia and neighboring states.[2] The Tobacco Bowl was always played in Richmond City Stadium. Virginia Tech (branded as VPI until the 1970s, after its official name, Virginia Polytechnic Institute), played in the most Tobacco Bowls (12), followed by Virginia (11) and VMI (10), but the game hosted the Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry game just twice, and the VMI-Virginia Tech rivalry game only once. After appearing in just four of the first 29 Tobacco Bowls, the city's own University of Richmond Spiders played in each of the last five games, against a visiting team from elsewhere in the southeast.

The Tobacco Bowl was Richmond's counterpart to the longer-lasting Oyster Bowl in Norfolk, Virginia, and the short-lived Harvest Bowl in Roanoke, Virginia, which were also regular season neutral-site contests. The game served as centerpiece of the National Tobacco Festival, which was held in Richmond every fall from 1948 until 1984. The festival included multiple activities in addition to the football game, including a parade, dinners, balls, beauty contests. The queen was selected from a group of crowned tobacco princesses who arrived in Richmond from all over the East Coast.[3]

The National Tobacco Festival was originally held in South Boston, Virginia from its inception in 1935 to 1941, when it was suspended during World War II.

  1. ^ Ehrenstamm, F. (October 11, 1973). "UR Active in Tobacco Festival" (PDF). The Collegian. University of Richmond. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 20, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2009.
  2. ^ a b "Tobacco Bowl Football Game". Flickr. Retrieved November 4, 2009.
  3. ^ "From the Archives: Parades". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Richmond Va. 2023-02-04.