The Las Vegas Bowl most recently became the Maaco Bowl Las Vegas. The annual college football bowl game will now be sponsored for at least 3 years (until 2011) by Maaco, which was announced earlier in 2009. This year's match-up will be played on December 22nd, 2009 at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas and feature BYU Cougars vs. Oregon State Beavers. Before the name change, this post-season college football bowl game has been played annually since 1992.
Starting in 2006, the Bowl gets first choice of the MWC (Mountain West Conference) teams. This would normally be the conference champion unless that team qualifies for the BCS. The Bowl gets to choose either the fourth-place or fifth-place Pac-10 team to meet its MWC opponent. The history of the bowl goes back to 1981 when it was called 'California Raisin Bowl', which was played in Fresno from 1981–1991. In 1992, the game reorganized and relocated to Las Vegas when it took on its current name.
Sam Boyd Stadium is originally known as Las Vegas Stadium. The name was changed to the Las Vegas Silver Bowl in 1978 and then Sam Boyd Silver Bowl in 1984 and finally in April 1994 to Sam Boyd Stadium. The seating capacity was 15,000 from 1971 until 1977. The capacity was raised to 32,000 in 1978 and then to 36,800 in 1999.
