Bahamas Bowl logo

Everyone loves the Bahamas Bowl.

Well, not everyone.

Three weeks after Matt Brown reported that the annual bowl with MAC and Conference USA tie-ins was in “real trouble,” the Bahamas Bowl was notably absent from Bowl Season’s 2025 bowl lineup.

So it officially isn’t happening this year. It wasn’t played in 2023, either. That was because of renovations at Thomas Robinson Stadium in Nassau, which forced the then-Famous Toastery Bowl to be played at Jerry Richardson Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, instead.

It returned last season, with Buffalo handing Liberty a 26-7 loss. And became social media fodder because the Flames’ head coach, Jamey Chadwell, was seen sporting a t-shirt that read “Jesus won,” while his team was getting their teeth kicked in.

That’s bowl season at its weird, wonderful best. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a January football trip to the Bahamas?

Apparently, the powers that be.

According to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, the bowl won’t be held in the Bahamas this year either, marking the second time in three years the game has left the islands. The 2025 version will reportedly be played somewhere, but where exactly is still to be determined. And McMurphy didn’t clarify whether this is another venue issue or the beginning of the end for the Bahamas Bowl altogether, something Brown strongly hinted at weeks ago.

ESPN put out a vague statement saying the Bahamas Bowl “will not be played” this season, but that the MAC and C-USA tie-ins will be handled through other ESPN-owned games.  So yes, your favorite 6–6 team will still get a bowl trip. Just not to a beach.

It’s a bummer, sure. The Bahamas Bowl was always a little weird, a little offbeat, but it was a fitting stage for one last chaotic showdown between two programs who spent the season in the ESPN+ window.

But weird is good. Weird is bowl season.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.