We rank the best (and worst) bowl game names

On Wednesday, a new member joined the ever-growing bowl season family. 

The Pop-Tarts Bowl is not a new game, but merely a rebranded one. Operated by Florida Citrus Sports, the Orlando-based game that's not the Citrus Bowl. For three years in the early 2000s it was known as the Tangerine Bowl, which makes sense since the tangerine is one of the smallest citrus fruit, and the Tangerine Bowl was smaller than the Citrus and Orange bowls.

In 2004, though, the game once again began selling its entire identity to sponsors (it was founded in 1990 as the Blockbuster Bowl), and now the folks in charge of the game have leaned all the way in. 

Naming bowl games is a subtle art. You have one word to tell players, coaches and viewers where you're located and/or what you're all about. Think about it: the term "Super Bowl" has stretched well beyond "NFL championship game" and has evolved into a catch-all term for the pinnacle of excellence in any given endeavor. There's a Super Bowl of drug busts, of jazz concerts, of bowling, of preaching, and of beekeeping. 

The best names recognize this and craft their own name that sells their location while also giving an identity to the game itself, or they recognize they can't find a prestigious name and swerve 180 degrees in the other direction, choosing a name that leans into the inherent silliness of college football. The worst do neither. 

As a man with strong opinions on all things hanging on the periphery of college football, I've decided to do what needed to be done and rank the bowl game names. 

TRADITIONAL

1. Rose: No explanation necessary. 

2. Orange: Everything here works -- the logo (although admittedly the old one was better), the mascot, and the fact that the namesake can fit inside the trophy, then be joyously thrown from the podium. Oklahoma fans have a tradition of putting oranges inside the Seed Sower statue on campus each time they play in the game; you can't do that with mortgage rates.

3. Sugar: A great name, just not quite as good as the above two.

4. Celebration: A relative newcomer to the college football postseason, in 2015 the Celebration Bowl was created to pit the champions of the MEAC and SWAC, essentially the HBCU national title game. A celebration, indeed.

5. Fiesta: Who wouldn't want to play in the party bowl?

6. Peach: Again, you can't go wrong with a handheld food item as your namesake, especially in Atlanta, though peaches aren't as easily thrown as oranges.

7. Cotton: Dallas isn't a big tourist city and doesn't produce tasty fruits like other towns, but the Cotton Bowl aptly summarizes the region.

8. Holiday: A name taken more for its spot on the calendar than its place on the map, but props to the folks in San Diego for nabbing this name way back in 1978.

9. Sun: A successful example of integrating a sponsor while also retaining the game's identity. Dumping Kellogg's corn flakes on the winning coach is good, harmless fun, but retaining the Sun Bowl name was the right choice for a region that gets 297 sunny days a year.

10. Independence: I'll quote myself here.

NON-TRADITIONAL 

1. Potato: The Boise game has been around since 1997, but it took until 2011 for the Idaho Potato Commission to rightly take over naming rights.

2. Mayo: Technically this a Sponsor-Named Game, as its full name is the Duke's Mayo Bowl. But does anything summarize the magnificent silliness of bowl season by putting off Christmas-decoration-takedown than "I can't, honey. I'm watching the Mayo Bowl"?

3. Pop-Tart: Another Sponsor-Named Game, but at least it's the right kind of sponsor. The only downside here is the Pop-Tart Bowl takes over for the Cheez-It Bowl. I one day dream of a world where I can spend seven consecutive hours on the couchFiesta Bowl

 watching college football and chowing down on Pop-Tarts and Cheez-Its. That's the life the Founding Fathers wanted us to live.

4. Pinstripe: Pinstripes are indisputably the best example of uniform-based marketing in all of sports -- every baseball team that wears them either directly or indirectly pays homage to the Yankees. Pinstripe Bowl is a great way of saying the Yankee Stadium Bowl without having to say the Yankee Stadium Bowl.

5. Cure: The only bowl game intending to raise money to cure breast cancer, the Cure Bowl is a bowl game doubling as a mission statement. In fact, the name is so effective that it crowds out the sponsor -- the game has cycled through four title sponsors in less than a decade. Its current full name is the Duluth Trading Company Cure Bowl. 

WORST

5. 68 Ventures: The game formerly known as the LendingTree Bowl, and the Dollar General Bowl, and the GoDaddy Bowl, and the GMAC Bowl, and originally the Mobile Alabama Bowl, last month again transferred its identity to a new sponsor, becoming the 68 Ventures Bowl. 68 Ventures is, apparently, a real-estate group aiming to "transform the Gulf Coast." But the folks in charge of the game and their sponsor miss the point: the bowl game and its name should give me a reason to visit and/or move to the Gulf Coast, at which point I would then use 68 Ventures's services. 

4. Quick Lane: Played in the early afternoon on the day after Christmas inside Detroit's Ford Field, the Quick Lane Bowl certainly adds to the excitement, doesn't it?

3. Arizona, Bahamas, Birmingham, Boca Raton, Frisco, Hawai'i, LA, Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach, New Mexico, New Orleans, Texas (tie): A long, exasperated sigh to all these games.

Extra spotlight to the Hawai'i and Texas bowls, who previously had great names (Aloha and Bluebonnet, respectively) in their respective markets but either lacked the imagination or gumption to revive the trademarks.

LA, New Mexico, New Orleans, Bahamas, Vegas: Each of you represent magnificent locales -- places that sell themselves. Five minutes of brainstorming would give each of you an recognizable name that sells instantly sells your locale and provides a unique identity to the game itself.

Frisco, Boca Raton: You two are suburbs. The most common question when the average fan learns their team is headed to your game is, "Huh?"

All of you can, and should, do better.

2. ReliaQuest: The ReliaQuest Bowl took over for the Outback Bowl, instantly plummeting the Tampa-based game to the lowest of the many Florida New Year's games. Somehow, the Gasparilla Bowl -- named after the city's history as a popular location for pirates, as well as Gasparilla Pirate Festival -- swooped in in 2008 to take a name that the ReliaQuest Bowl (founded in 1986) should've used all along. 

1. Guaranteed Rate: I don't know what the rate is that I'm being guaranteed, I don't know who's guaranteeing it, and I don't want to know. No one has ever been excited to say "We're going to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl" and no one ever will.