The Hula Bowl, once one of the premier postseason all-star games for NFL-bound college football players, is coming back after nearly a decade break. And what better place to say Aloha” to our old friend than in the state of North Carolina?
It was recently announced the Hula Bowl will return in January 2018, at the end of the 2017 college football season and in the mix of current all-star games like the Senior Bowl and Shrine Game. However, the game will not return to Aloha Stadium until 2019. That is because organizers for the game have decided to bring the game back in 2018 in NC State’s Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. As you might imagine, this was a cost-saving move for the game.
The game in Hawaii lost traction as it struggled to line up sponsors, but organizers for the Hula Bowl believe they have secured enough support from sponsors to make the game thrive in North Carolina before shifting back to Hawaii in 2019. The plan is to have the game alternate between locations. If the game is to avoid the financial pitfalls that once led to the game losing momentum and security, it will have to be a good draw. Playing the game in a state like North Carolina seems like a decent geographic fit in January, but it will be difficult to take away steam from the well-run Senior Bowl, the clear top-draw in the college football all-star circuit. It will, however, be yet another opportunity for players to get get a chance to showcase their skills and meet scouts and NFL coaches in hopes of catching an opportunity at the next level, especially when the game is played in North Carolina.
The selection of North Carolina does not come without a hint of controversy, however. With sporting organizations and events pulling out of the state due to the controversial bathroom laws, choosing Raleigh as a location for the game on an alternating basis is intriguing.
The format for the Hula Bowl will be based on an East-West outline for players, which it had used before throughout the duration of the game’s existence from 1960 through 2008. The game also used a North-South format in the past as well, similar to the Senior Bowl.
