The stage is about for the tenth version of the HBCU nationwide championship sport—higher often called the Celebration Bowl—and followers not have to attend to e-book their accommodations. ESPN has introduced that the official date and time of the 2025 Cricket Celebration Bowl will probably be Saturday, December 13, 2025, at midday ET, reside on ABC.
The Celebration Bowl, which pits the champions of the MEAC and SWAC towards each other, has turn out to be the definitive showdown for HBCU soccer supremacy. And final 12 months’s version delivered in an enormous method, each on the sphere and in dwelling rooms throughout the nation.
Schedule Change
In 2024, the Celebration Bowl marked its first look below the newly revamped Faculty Soccer Playoff schedule. The change shifted the sport up by every week, creating ripple results that sparked debate inside the HBCU soccer world. Critics identified that the MEAC champion had a built-in benefit—a further two weeks to arrange. The SWAC champion needed to flip round and play instantly after their convention championship.
Nonetheless, none of that mattered as soon as the pads began popping. Jackson State, contemporary off their SWAC title, steamrolled South Carolina State in a 28-7 assertion win to seize their first Celebration Bowl crown. The Tigers additionally turned the second straight SWAC program to hoist the trophy. Flipping a script lengthy dominated by MEAC applications.
Celebration Bowl by the Numbers
Off the sphere, the numbers instructed a hit story of their very own. The 2024 Celebration Bowl pulled in 2.1 million viewers on ABC. That quantity was up 37% from the earlier 12 months’s 1.5 million viewers, in line with ESPN. A lot of that spike may be credited to the strategic time slot. The midday ET kickoff confronted just about no competitors from different faculty bowl video games or NFL matchups. A luxurious not afforded in earlier years, when scheduling overlap diluted viewership.
Attendance for the HBCU nationwide championship has additionally remained strong, with over 40,000 followers packing Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the 2024 version. That type of turnout, paired with rising TV numbers, exhibits that the Celebration Bowl isn’t simply surviving within the ever-changing faculty soccer panorama, it’s thriving.
As anticipation builds for the 2025 reveal, one factor is obvious. The Celebration Bowl has firmly cemented itself because the crown jewel of HBCU soccer. And with 12 months 10 on the horizon, all eyes will probably be on what’s subsequent.
