Colonel James M. Thompson, publisher of the New Orleans Item, and Sports Editor Fred Digby, first presented the idea of a New Year's Day football classic in New Orleans in 1927. Click here for Sugar Bowl tickets. From its inception, the Mid-Winter Sports Association has been free of political entanglement. Under the charter, it was stipulated that it was to be a "voluntary, non-profit civic organization whose members serve without remuneration." In practice, this means that all Sugar Bowlers buy their own tickets to all events.

Further, the charter provided that there shall be no private profits and any surplus above the required operation expenses or reserve fund must be devoted to "charitable, religious or educational purposes."

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The Sugar Bowl, which celebrates its 71st year, is comprised of more than 100 men and women volunteer members whose sole purpose is to sponsor and promote amateur sporting events as well as to foster revenue to spark economic growth in the city of New Orleans and the state.

The annual football classic spans more than seven decades, each with distinctive milestones that will be talked about for years to come. 1930s

The 1930s set the stage for the Sugar Bowl as the first-ever Classic was played on New Year's Day in 1935 between Tulane University and Temple University. The Green Wave beat the Owls 20-14. The inaugural Classic was a hit, and in 1936 the Sugar Bowl enlarged Tulane Stadium by 14,000 seats to a capacity of 38,000.

1940s

World War II took center stage during the 1940s, but the Sugar Bowl Classic continued. In 1942, the Bowl played host to the East-West Shrine game as the annual contest was moved away from San Francisco as a wartime safety measure. Named after the Sugar Bowl's first president, the Warren V. Miller Trophy was established to recognize the Classic's most outstanding football player. Texas All-American Bobby Layne was the award's first recipient. 1950s

The 1950s were a decade of firsts for the Classic as legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant led his 1951 Kentucky team to a 13-7 win over Oklahoma for his first of eight Sugar Bowl victories, and Navy became the first service academy to play in the Classic as the Middies upset SEC champion Ole Miss, 21-0. The Bowl sponsored its first live television program in 1953 and the game was simulcast coast-to-coast that year. 1960s

Technology played an enormous role for the Sugar Bowl during the 1960s as the Classic became the first bowl game televised coast-to-coast in color as well as becoming the first bowl televised by satellite to Hawaii. Ole Miss played in the most Bowl games of the decade with four and Alabama won three Sugar Bowl crowns under Bear Bryant as he became the first coach to post Bowl wins with two different teams. 1970s

The Bowl continued its rise in popularity and stature in the 1970s. In 1972, a record 84,083 fans witnessed Oklahoma beat Auburn, 40-22, while the very next year, Oklahoma and Penn State played in the Bowl's first-ever night game. The Alabama-Notre Dame game was the most talked about, most attended and most watched on television of any Sugar Bowl contest. Notre Dame won the national title in that game with a 24-23 victory in front of a record 85,161 fans at Tulane Stadium. The game captured 25.3 percent of the national television audience. The Bowl said goodbye to Tulane Stadium, its home for 39 years, and moved into the Louisiana Superdome in 1975 as Alabama christened the Dome, winning its fourth Sugar Bowl title with a 13-6 victory over Penn State.

1980s

During the decade of the 1980s, the Bowl celebrated its silver anniversary, enjoyed a presidential visit and signed its first title sponsor. Auburn edged Michigan, 9-7, in the Classic's 50th Anniversary game in 1984. Former President Jimmy Carter watched his home state team Georgia win a national title in 1981 with a 17-10 victory over Notre Dame and USF&G became the Bowl's title sponsor in 1986. The Classic also saw its first tie as Auburn and Syracuse finished in a 16-16 deadlock in the 1988 game.

1990s

The Sky's has been the limit for the Sugar Bowl during the 1990s as it joined a bowl alliance, changed title sponsors, produced record payouts and hosted three national title games. In 1990, Miami defeated Alabama to win the first national championship of the new decade. In 1991, the Sugar Bowl joined forces with the Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Fiesta Bowl to form the "Bowl Coalition." In 1993, the Bowl saw Alabama beat Miami for the national championship in a matchup of the country's top two teams. The Bowl reached its 60th-anniversary in 1994 and in 1995, Nokia, a Finnish telecommunications and electronics supplier became just the second title sponsor of the Sugar Bowl. The Classic celebrated its 63rd birthday in 1997 while hosting the national title game between Florida and Florida State in front of a Superdome record of 78,347. Both teams received a record payout of $8.736 million. In 1998, the Sugar Bowl, along with the Rose, Fiesta and Orange Bowls, joined the Bowl Championship Series, a spinoff of the Bowl Alliance. The BCS guaranteed a matchup of college football's two top teams in a national championship game with the four bowls rotating as host. Under the BCS rotation, the Sugar Bowl would open the year 2000 by hosting the national championship game. 2000s

The Sugar Bowl ushered in the new millennium in grand fashion by hosting college football's first national championship game of the new century. A record Louisiana Superdome crowd of 79,280 saw No. 1 ranked Florida State Seminoles defeat No. 2 ranked Virginia Tech Hokies, 46-29. The Classic celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2004 with its second national championship game of the new millennium. The Fighting Tigers of LSU beat the Oklahoma Sooners, 21-14 for the BCS crown in front of an all-time Dome record crowd of 79, 342. The teams also received a sweet payout of $14-$17 million each.