ESPN Regional Television Announces Date for Inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl

ESPN Regional Television announced today that the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl will be played Saturday, Dec. 20, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The inaugural game, featuring a team from the BIG EAST Conference and one from Conference USA, will be televised nationally on ESPN2.

Game time for the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl is 6:30 p.m. ET.

“We are not only thrilled to create a Florida bowl game experience for teams from C-USA and the BIG EAST, “ said Pete Derzis, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ESPN Regional Television, “we’re also proud to showcase the St. Petersburg area and all it has to offer. The early evening kickoff will allow those attending the game to enjoy a full day of Florida’s renowned December weather before their bowl experience.”

The St. Petersburg Bowl is an NCAA-certified college football game owned and operated by ESPN Regional Television (ERT).  The new bowl game was approved by the NCAA in April. ERT markets and owns five other bowl games — the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl, Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, PapaJohns.com Bowl and the New Mexico Bowl.

Tickets to the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl are expected to go on sale this summer. For more information, call 1-800-325-2910. For more information, visit StPetersburgBowl.com.

ESPN Regional Television/Event Ownership

The nation’s largest syndicator of collegiate sports programming, ESPN Regional Television (ERT) annually produces more than 900 sporting events. Programming includes football, basketball, NCAA events, golf and NHRA events accounting for more than 2,200 live and/or original hours of programming. In addition to event ownership, ERT is the production headquarters for ESPNU, the 24-hour college sports network; syndication rights-holder and producer of national, regional and local shows for college conferences (e.g. – BIG EAST, Big 12, Mid-American, Sun Belt, WAC).

ESPN Regional Television markets and/or owns several other sporting events, including collegiate football events: the St. Petersburg Bowl; the Papajohns.com Bowl; the Bell Helicopter Armed Forced Bowl; the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl; the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl; the MEAC/SWAC Challenge; and The Home Depot College Football Awards; collegiate basketball events: the O’Reilly Auto Parts All-College Classic (Oklahoma City); the Old Spice Classic (Orlando, Fla.); the SEC/BIG EAST Invitational; the Anaheim Classic (Calif.); the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip-Off (San Juan); and the O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters; as well as the ESPN National Golf Challenge presented by Callaway. For more information, visit www.espnplus.com.

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