The Holiday Bowl\u2019s ongoing financial hardships are serious enough that event organizers pursued the possibility of playing January\u2019s game in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Mark Neville, the CEO of Sports San Diego, which stages the Holiday Bowl, visited the country in June for meetings and to discuss logistics.<\/p>\n
Officials from the Atlantic Coast Conference \u2014 one of the game\u2019s two participating leagues \u2014 reportedly put an end to the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are always looking at considering ideas to make us better, to keep things fresh and new and innovative,\u201d Neville said. \u201cThis was an opportunity that came from the relationships we\u2019ve built through decades. It was a relationship that opened this door for us, so we considered it. It would have been foolish to say, \u2018No way.\u2019 Of course, we\u2019re going to consider this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Holiday Bowl matches a team from the ACC against a current or former member of the Pac-12. If everything had fallen into place, the teams would have played Jan. 2 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the 60,000-seat King Abdullah Sports City Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cRevenue streams are limited for us, so we\u2019ve got to get creative,\u201d Neville said. \u201cThis is a pretty creative way. That\u2019s where this whole concept came from, and we pursued it. We went down the path. It takes a big idea like this, or a big event like this, it takes a lot of pieces to the puzzle to put together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, the pieces of the puzzle just didn\u2019t come together. And so we move on. We\u2019re going to have a great game in San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n
Numbers game<\/p>\n
The combined payout to the teams participating in the Holiday Bowl is $5.9 million. It would have been substantially greater for a game played in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Sports San Diego also would have received significant money to move the game there as a one-off event, helping ease some of the financial strain. The game\u2019s financial reserves were exhausted when COVID-19 forced the 2020 and 2021 contests to be canceled.<\/p>\n
Losses were limited in 2020 because organizers pulled the plug on the game two months beforehand, well before most cash outlays were made. Such was not the case in 2021, when UCLA backed out five hours before kickoff against North Carolina State. The Holiday Bowl eventually sued the Pac-12 to recover some of those losses.<\/p>\n
The game is currently without a title sponsor following two years with DirecTV.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow going to Saudi Arabia for the Holiday Bowl would have helped us \u2014 and, by the way, we\u2019re not going there \u2014 it was going to help provide us some funds to keep this effort sustainable,\u201d Neville said. \u201cOnce that door closed, we look at a bunch of other stuff. We\u2019re always, always creating ways to make everything we do better and we\u2019re always, always trying to create ways to make this effort sustainable in the long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery decision we make is to benefit San Diego, even this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Holiday Bowl receives a $400,000 grant from the San Diego Tourism Authority to help put on the event. Neville said in 2024 the game generated 15,000 hotel room nights and $18 million in economic impact.<\/p>\n
Among the conditions for receiving funds is that the event be held in the city of San Diego and that it increase the number of overnight visitors to the city. Neville said Sports San Diego would have returned the grant money had January\u2019s game been played in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attendance, sponsorship issues<\/p>\n
For decades, the Holiday Bowl attracted crowds of 50,000 or more to Qualcomm Stadium. The game\u2019s history of tight finishes and gaudy offensive numbers earned it the moniker of \u201cAmerica\u2019s Most Exciting Bowl Game.\u201d<\/p>\n
But college football\u2019s move to a playoff system and the trend of athletes (and even coaches) leaving schools before postseason games are played have affected San Diego\u2019s longtime bowl.<\/p>\n
USC star quarterback Caleb Williams skipped the Trojans\u2019 2023 Holiday Bowl against Louisville.<\/p>\n
Washington State arrived for last year\u2019s game against Syracuse without both its coach and starting quarterback. Fans stayed home: The attendance for December\u2019s game was 23,920, the smallest in Holiday Bowl history.<\/p>\n
Holiday Bowl officials will keep one eye on increasing revenue, but could also look to cut expenses moving forward. The Holiday Bowl\u2019s six-year deal with the ACC and Pac-12 expires after the January game. It would not be surprising to see the Holiday Bowl create tie-ins with the new Pac-12 and the Mountain West in the next cycle, with a significantly lower combined payout of perhaps $2 million.<\/p>\n
Critics call it \u2018sportswashing\u2019<\/p>\n
There was certain to be blowback to any deal with Saudi Arabia because of the country\u2019s history of human rights violations.<\/p>\n
In its April report, \u201cThe State of the World\u2019s Human Rights,\u201d Amnesty International wrote that, in Saudi Arabia: \u201cHuman rights defenders and others exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association were subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention, unfair trials leading to lengthy prison terms, and travel bans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The organization wrote that domestic workers \u201ccontinued to be subjected to forced labor and other forms of labor abuse and exploitation, and\u00a0lacked access to adequate protection and redress mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n
That hasn\u2019t stopped several professional sports leagues and athletes from going to the country, or receiving funds from it. Critics call it \u201csportswashing\u201d \u2014 using sporting events to distract from human rights and other abuses.<\/p>\n
LIV Golf is funded by Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund. The FIBA Asia Championship basketball tournament, Formula 1 racing, WWE wrestling and the Esports World Cup have all been held in Saudi Arabia. Tennis\u2019\u00a0 WTA Finals are being played there in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Neville said he didn\u2019t \u201cwant to get into that other part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe at the Holiday Bowl have always prided ourselves in the experience that we provide players, the bands and the visiting fans when they come here for the bowl. I think we\u2019re second to none as it relates to that,\u201d he said. \u201cThis, over there (in Saudi Arabia), would have been next-level. The cultural exchange. It would have been the first American football game in that region of the world. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience over there was very favorable, and let\u2019s just leave it at that.\u00a0 I\u2019m very open-minded. I don\u2019t judge people. I\u2019m pretty naive, too. I freely admit that. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and there are beautiful people everywhere in the world, including in Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 18, 2025 at 4:19 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Holiday Bowl\u2019s ongoing financial hardships are serious enough that event organizers pursued the possibility of playing January\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,305,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-12019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}