Bowl: Cotton Bowl 2005
Sport: College Football
Background: The 69th SBC Cotton Bowl Classic is scheduled for Friday, January 1, 2005, at 10 a.m. CST.

The Cotton Bowl Athletic Association (CBAA) is a nonprofit organization incorporated under the laws of the state of Texas to promote, sponsor and stage an annual postseason intercollegiate football game in Dallas.

SBC Communications became the official title sponsor of the game on September 18, 1996. The length of the partnership runs through the 2006 Classic.

The first Classic was conceived by the late J. Curtis Sanford, a Dallas oilman and business executive. Sanford's first game promotion, a private enterprise guaranteeing each institution $10,000, matched TCU and Marquette on January 1, 1937, at Fair Park's Cotton Bowl Stadium before 17,000 fans. In 1941, the affiliation with the Southwest Conference began, with the SWC voting to send its champion annually to the Classic as the host institution. A partnership was formed in 1998 to create one of the top collegiate matchups in postseason play. Each year the SBC Cotton Bowl Classic will serve as the New Year's Day home for the Big 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference.

The 68,252-seat Cotton Bowl Stadium, located within Fair Park in Dallas, has served as the home of the annual Classic during all of its 68-year history.

Each year, participants in the SBC Cotton Bowl Classic will be chosen from the Big 12 Conference and the Southeastern Conference. The Big 12 provides the game's anchor institution. Once the selection process has been completed by the Bowl Championship Series, the Classic receives its choice of Big 12 members. The SEC will provide a division champion, a division runner-up, a team with a comparable record or a mutually agreed upon team as the Big 12's opponent. The SBC Cotton Bowl has the opportunity to select either Notre Dame or a Big East Conference team in place of the SEC representative once in the current contract cycle which expires in 2006.