The Pop-Tarts Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, matching a top ACC selection against a Big 12 team — and it is the only bowl in America whose mascot is lowered into a giant toaster and eaten by the winning team. The most recent edition, played December 27, 2025, ended with BYU rallying past Georgia Tech 25-21 in front of 34,126 fans and an average television audience of 8.7 million, the game’s biggest since 1991. The next edition is scheduled for Tuesday, December 29, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Pop-Tarts remains the title sponsor for a fourth straight year. What follows is the verified record: every edition played, the game’s nine sponsor names since 1990, and the marketing figures that explain why a mid-tier December bowl became one of the most-watched non-playoff games on the calendar.
Pop-Tarts Bowl at a glance
- Venue: Camping World Stadium, Orlando, Florida
- Operator: Florida Citrus Sports, a nonprofit that also runs the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl
- Founded: 1990, as the Blockbuster Bowl in Miami Gardens
- Moved to Orlando: 2001
- Tie-ins: Top available ACC team, Notre Dame eligible, versus the Big 12’s second selection outside the College Football Playoff
- Title sponsor: Pop-Tarts, a brand now owned by Mars following its completed purchase of Kellanova in December 2025
- Trophy: A working two-slot toaster built into a silver football, designed with GE Appliances
Every Pop-Tarts Bowl played so far
Three editions have been contested under the Pop-Tarts name. Every score, date and attendance figure below comes from the bowl’s official history archive; viewership figures come from network and trade reporting.
| Edition | Date | Matchup | Final score | Mascot eaten | Attendance | Avg. TV audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Dec. 28, 2023 | Kansas State vs. NC State | Kansas State 28-19 | Frosted Strawberry | 31,111 | 4.31 million (ESPN) |
| 2024 | Dec. 28, 2024 | Iowa State vs. Miami | Iowa State 42-41 | Frosted Cinnamon Roll | 38,650 | 6.8 million (ABC) |
| 2025 | Dec. 27, 2025 | BYU vs. Georgia Tech | BYU 25-21 | Frosted Cherry and Frosted Cookies & Creme (Team Sprinkles) | 34,126 | 8.7 million (ABC) |
| 2026 | Dec. 29, 2026 | ACC No. 1 available vs. Big 12 No. 2 available | Not yet played | Not announced | — | ESPN broadcast |
Two of the three games have been decided by single digits, and the 2024 meeting between Iowa State and Miami finished 42-41 after Iowa State scored late. The bowl has not produced a blowout under its current sponsor, which matters more than it sounds: the stunt only lands if people are still watching in the fourth quarter.
The edible mascot, explained
The premise is simple and slightly deranged. A costumed human-sized Pop-Tart spends the game on the sideline. After the final whistle, the mascot climbs into an oversized toaster on the field, descends, and re-emerges as an actual edible pastry roughly the size of a coffee table. The winning team then eats it. Pop-Tarts calls the destination “Mouth Heaven.”
The first version debuted in December 2023, when Kansas State players tore into a Frosted Strawberry mascot after beating NC State. The bit escalated each year. In 2024 the brand ran three mascots and let the game’s MVP choose which one died; Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht picked Frosted Cinnamon Roll. In 2025 the brand fielded six mascots split into Team Sprinkles and Team Swirls, with fans voting on which trio would be sacrificed. Team Sprinkles lost the vote, and two of its members went into the toaster for BYU.
The escalation is deliberate. Each year adds a mechanic — MVP choice, fan voting, a mystery flavor, a returning discontinued flavor — that gives audiences something to argue about before kickoff. That is a different discipline from buying commercial time, and Pop-Tarts marketers have said as much. It sits closer to the logic behind the most widely shared ad campaigns than to a standard stadium signage deal.
The numbers behind the stunt
Novelty marketing usually gets graded on vibes. This one has a paper trail, and the figures are unusually specific for a brand activation.
Product sales
In the eight weeks after the 2023 game, Pop-Tarts sold 21 million more units than it had in the eight weeks before it, according to figures the brand shared with Forbes. Google search interest in the brand hit its highest level since at least 2008. Pop-Tarts senior marketing director Heidi Ray told Forbes that concentrating a heavy load of paid spots into a short window “did less than we thought” — the earned attention did the work instead.
Earned media and awards
The 2023 activation generated more than four billion impressions and accounted for over 80% of all bowl-season coverage mentioning Pop-Tarts, per the brand’s own reporting when the campaign won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Lions. The same disclosure cited 15 times more brand mentions than the ten other non-Kellanova-sponsored bowls combined, and about $1 million in acquired first-party consumer data. The campaign also took a Grand Clio and Brand Activation of the Year at the Sports Business Journal awards.
Independent valuations tracked the same curve. Front Office Sports reported $12.1 million in earned media value from the 2023 game as calculated by Apex Marketing Group, plus a sponsorship-value increase of more than 25% year over year. Measurement for the 2024 game came in at $26.1 million in equivalent media value across a ten-day window. That is roughly a doubling in twelve months for a property that had spent three decades cycling through sponsors nobody remembered.
Television
The audience curve is the cleanest evidence. The 2023 game averaged 4.31 million viewers on ESPN. Moved to ABC in 2024, it drew 6.8 million, a 58% jump and the Orlando bowl’s largest audience since 2008. The 2025 BYU-Georgia Tech game averaged 8.7 million, which ESPN’s postseason recap ranked among the two most-watched non-playoff, non-New Year’s Six bowls since the 2019-20 season and the game’s best since its 1991 Blockbuster Bowl days.
Context keeps this honest. Bowl viewership rose broadly that season — ESPN’s 33 non-playoff bowls averaged 3.1 million, up 13% year over year, the best mark since 2015-16. A rising tide helped. But the Pop-Tarts Bowl outgrew the tide by a wide margin and did it with matchups no one would call marquee, which is the whole argument for the stunt.
What the organizer actually banks
Team payouts for this bowl are not publicly disclosed, and no verified figure should be quoted. What is on the record comes from nonprofit filings reviewed by Sportico: the Tangerine Sports Association, which operates the game, reported $9.3 million in fiscal 2024 revenue, including $3.1 million in media rights and $2.9 million in sponsorships. The 2023 game produced about $3 million in ticket revenue from roughly 31,000 fans. Notably, Florida Citrus Sports CEO Steve Hogan has said the organization could not reprice the deal after it went viral, because Pop-Tarts extended through a pre-priced option already written into the original contract. The brand captured the upside; the bowl captured the attention.
Nine names in thirty-six years
Few bowls have changed identity this often. Raycom Sports founded the game in 1990 at what was then Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami Gardens; the first edition drew more than 74,000 for Florida State against Penn State. It relocated to Orlando in 2001 and has stayed there since.
| Name | Years | City |
|---|---|---|
| Blockbuster Bowl | 1990-1993 | Miami Gardens |
| Carquest Bowl | 1994-1997 | Miami Gardens |
| MicronPC Bowl | 1998-2000 | Miami Gardens |
| Tangerine Bowl | 2001-2003 | Orlando |
| Champs Sports Bowl | 2004-2011 | Orlando |
| Russell Athletic Bowl | 2012-2016 | Orlando |
| Camping World Bowl | 2017-2019 | Orlando |
| Cheez-It Bowl | 2020-2022 | Orlando |
| Pop-Tarts Bowl | 2023-present | Orlando |
The conference pairing has shifted too. The game matched the ACC against the Big Ten from 2006 to 2010, the ACC against the Big East from 2010 to 2013, and since 2014 has taken the ACC’s top available team against the Big 12’s second selection outside the playoff field. That churn is the backdrop for why the current arrangement stands out: sponsors historically rented this bowl for a few years and left no cultural residue at all.
Why a snack brand outperformed the sport’s own storylines
The expanded College Football Playoff was supposed to hollow out the middle of bowl season. Twelve teams now play for a title, star players increasingly opt out of December exhibitions, and the games left over compete for a shrinking pool of attention. The Pop-Tarts Bowl responded by refusing to compete on football stakes at all. It competes on spectacle, and the spectacle is genuinely unique — no other game in the sport has a mascot that dies.
That gives the bowl an identity independent of who plays in it, which is the rarest asset in sports sponsorship. Hogan has said players began asking to be in “that game.” The activation now travels beyond Orlando: the edible mascots appeared at the Iowa State-Kansas State season opener in Dublin, Ireland, extending the property well past a single December afternoon. It is a case study in building durable brand equity rather than renting a logo placement.
It also fits a broader shift in how college sports generate value. Attention itself has become the tradeable commodity, the same dynamic that turned individual athletes into media businesses and made figures like Caitlin Clark’s earnings a mainstream news story. The Pop-Tarts Bowl applies that logic to an institution instead of a person. Its closest cultural cousin is not another bowl game but the self-aware, meme-ready internet spectacle behind trends like aura farming — content built to be clipped, quoted and argued over.
What is confirmed for the 2026 game
The 2026 Pop-Tarts Bowl is set for Tuesday, December 29, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN, with Pop-Tarts back as title sponsor for a fourth season. Teams have not been announced and will not be until conference standings and playoff selections settle in early December. No mascot lineup or flavor roster has been released.
One open variable is worth tracking. Camping World Stadium began a roughly $400 million renovation in January 2026, scheduled to finish late in the year. Florida Citrus Sports has held preliminary talks with UCF about using Acrisure Bounce House as a contingency venue if construction runs long, and UCF’s board approved the framework in December 2025. Orlando remains the plan; the specific stadium is the thing to confirm closer to kickoff.
There is one more wrinkle behind the scenes. Mars closed its roughly $36 billion acquisition of Kellanova on December 11, 2025, weeks before the most recent edition. Pop-Tarts now sits inside a much larger snacking portfolio, and the long-term commitment beyond the currently announced 2026 game has not been publicly detailed. For now, the toaster is still going to be on the field, and somebody is still going to eat the mascot.
Pop-Tarts Bowl, Quick Answers
What is the Pop-Tarts Bowl?
It is an annual college football bowl game held at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, operated by the nonprofit Florida Citrus Sports. The matchup pairs the top available ACC team, with Notre Dame eligible, against the Big 12’s second selection outside the College Football Playoff. It has carried the Pop-Tarts name since 2023 and is best known for an edible mascot that the winning team eats after the final whistle.
Who won the most recent Pop-Tarts Bowl?
BYU won the 2025 edition, beating Georgia Tech 25-21 on December 27, 2025, at Camping World Stadium. Attendance was 34,126. The game averaged 8.7 million viewers on ABC, the bowl’s largest television audience since 1991, when it was still the Blockbuster Bowl.
Does the mascot really get eaten?
Yes. A costumed mascot enters an oversized toaster on the field and is replaced by a giant edible pastry that the winning team tears into. Kansas State ate a Frosted Strawberry mascot in 2023, Iowa State ate Frosted Cinnamon Roll in 2024 after MVP Rocco Becht chose it, and in 2025 fans voted for Team Sprinkles, sending Frosted Cherry and Frosted Cookies & Creme to what the brand calls Mouth Heaven.
When is the next Pop-Tarts Bowl?
The 2026 Pop-Tarts Bowl is scheduled for Tuesday, December 29, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Participating teams are not announced until conference standings and playoff selections are finalized in early December. Camping World Stadium is undergoing a roughly $400 million renovation, and Florida Citrus Sports has discussed UCF’s Acrisure Bounce House as a contingency venue if construction runs past schedule.
What was the Pop-Tarts Bowl called before?
The game has carried nine sponsor names since its founding in 1990: Blockbuster Bowl, Carquest Bowl, MicronPC Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Champs Sports Bowl, Russell Athletic Bowl, Camping World Bowl, Cheez-It Bowl, and now Pop-Tarts Bowl. It began in Miami Gardens and relocated to Orlando in 2001. The 1990 inaugural game drew more than 74,000 fans for Florida State against Penn State.
Did the edible mascot stunt actually help sales?
By the brand’s own reporting, yes. Pop-Tarts sold 21 million more units in the eight weeks after the 2023 game than in the eight weeks before it, and brand search interest reached its highest point since at least 2008. The activation generated more than four billion impressions, won the Brand Experience and Activation Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Lions, and independent valuations put earned media at $12.1 million for 2023 and $26.1 million for 2024.
Records and Reporting
- bowl’s official history archive — poptartsbowl.com
- Forbes — forbes.com
- won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Lions — newsroom.kellanova.com
- Front Office Sports — frontofficesports.com
- ESPN’s postseason recap — espnpressroom.com
- Sportico — sportico.com
