JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – While we won't know which teams will play for another three weeks, tickets to the 72nd annual TaxSlayer Bowl went on sale to the public Wednesday.
This year’s game, in its sixth year of a naming rights partnership with TaxSlayer.com, will be played at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 31,at EverBank Field and will be nationally televised on ESPN.
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Tickets are available at taxslayerbowl.com or through Ticketmaster.
“TaxSlayer is honored to be the naming rights sponsor of this iconic Bowl game. It is a legacy in college football and we are extremely proud to be a part of such a dedicated and professional Bowl family,” TaxSlayer.com president and CEO Brian Rhodes said.
The match-up will include a representative from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and a visiting team from the Big Ten Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference or Notre Dame.
TaxSlayer Bowl selection process
In each year of the current six-year agreement, one team will come from the Southeastern Conference and the other either from the Atlantic Coast Conference or Notre Dame.
Once the teams for the New Year’s six bowls and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl are selected, the SEC has created a Tier 1 Bowl pool that is made up of the TaxSlayer Bowl, the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Belk Bowl and the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl. The pool of teams to populate these Bowls will be created by the Southeastern Conference and the Bowls will work with the Conference office and the schools’ athletic directors to create the best matchups possible.
The ACC has created a Tier 1 pool that includes the TaxSlayer Bowl, the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, the Belk Bowl, the New Era Pinstripe Bowl and the Hyundai Sun Bowl. The Bowls will work with the Conference and the schools’ athletic directors to create the best matchups while attempting to use regionalization in this process.
IN the Big Ten conference, the section process is picked in this order:
1. Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl
2. Outback Bowl
3. National Funding Holiday Bowl
4. TaxSlayer Bowl/Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
5. New Era Pinstripe Bowl
The conference office works with the bowls to ensure that the Big Ten teams do not have repeat games with the same bowl.
Final team selection for the 2016 TaxSlayer Bowl will take place on Sunday, Dec. 4. The TaxSlayer Bowl’s Selection Committee is currently considering Auburn, LSU and Florida from the SEC; Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin from the Big Ten; and Florida State, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia Tech from the ACC.