Russell Athletic Bowl The Russell Athletic Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that is played in Orlando , Florida , at the Citrus Bowl . The bowl is operated by Florida Citrus Sports , a non - profit group which also organizes the Capital One Bowl and Florida Classic . The bowl was founded in 1990 by Raycom and was originally played at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami where it was known as the Blockbuster Bowl , the CarQuest Bowl , and the MicronPC Bowl . The bowl was also known as the Tangerine Bowl , the original name for the Capital One Bowl , from the time it moved to Orlando until Foot Locker , the parent company of Champs Sports , purchased naming rights in 2004 , naming it the Champs Sports Bowl . On June 18 , 2012 , naming rights were purchased by Russell Athletic for the 2012 - 2015 games . What is now the Russell Athletic Bowl was sprung from a desire to hold a second bowl game in Miami as an accompaniment to the Orange Bowl , and to showcase the brand new stadium in the city that was built in 1987 . Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga quickly joined forces with bowl organizers and brought in Blockbuster Video , which he owned at the time , as title sponsor . The inaugural game , played on December 28 , 1990 , pitted Florida State and Penn State , and two legendary coaches , Bobby Bowden versus Joe Paterno in front of over 74 , 000 at Joe Robbie Stadium . Subsequent games , however , never matched the success of the first , even though the bowl was eventually moved to New Year ' s Day in 1993 . For the 1994 playing , CarQuest Auto Parts became the title sponsor after Huizenga sold Blockbuster Video to Viacom ( which later acquired , and renamed itself after , the CBS TV network , which broadcast the game during its New Year ' s Day era ; a new Viacom was spun off from CBS in 2006 , though Blockbuster was itself spun off in 2004 ) . The New Year ' s Day experiment was short lived as the organizers of the Orange Bowl , who had been seeking to move the game out of the aging Miami Orange Bowl for some time , received permission to move to Joe Robbie Stadium beginning in 1996 . After the 2000 playing , Florida Citrus Sports took over the game and moved it to Orlando . Since the 2006 football season , the bowl has matched teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference . Under the terms of a television deal signed with ESPN in 2006 , the bowl will be held after Christmas Day from 2006 – 2009 , and be shown on ESPN in prime time . The change was made to move the game from the less - desirable pre - Christmas date utilized from 2001 – 2004 . On August 18 , 2009 , the Champs Sports Bowl announced that the Big East will be one of the tie - in conferences for 4 years starting in 2010 . They will also have the option of selecting Notre Dame once out of the four years ( which they did in 2011 ) . On October 7 , 2009 , the Champs Sports Bowl announced that they had extended their agreement with the Atlantic Coast Conference for the same term . The game will match the third pick from the ACC against the second selection from the Big East . The previous agreement matched the 4th pick from the ACC against the 4th or 5th pick from the Big Ten . The University of Notre Dame , representing the Big East ( as permitted in the agreement with the conference ) and Florida State University from the ACC played in the 2011 bowl . Before gaining Blockbuster Entertainment as the corporate sponsor for the inaugural event , the game was tentatively referred to as the Sunshine Classic .