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Myrtle Beach Bowl to pit MAC, Sun Belt and C-USA teams, begin play in 2020

Coastal Carolina will host the Myrtle Beach Bowl. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images)
Coastal Carolina will host the Myrtle Beach Bowl. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images)

Behold, the Myrtle Beach Bowl.

The game’s existence was officially announced Tuesday and it will begin in 2020. The game will feature a rotation of opponents from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference and the Sun Belt Conference and be played at Coastal Carolina’s home stadium.

The Myrtle Beach Bowl will be televised and owned by ESPN.

“We are pleased to bring post season college football to the greater Myrtle Beach area and are thrilled to have representation from three of our conference partners; Conference USA, MAC and Sun Belt,” ESPN senior vice president Pete Derzis said in a statement. “With the inaugural Myrtle Beach Basketball Invitational taking place this week, the addition of this bowl game brings yet another opportunity to showcase all that Myrtle Beach has to offer.”

Yes, there are a lot of bowl games

The game will feature at least four teams from each of the three conferences from 2020-2025. It will likely help teams from the three conferences who would potentially miss out on a bowl game at 7-5 or 6-6 if there are more bowl-eligible teams than there are spots. Yeah, there might have been 39 bowl games last season but there were still some teams that didn’t go to games despite getting to six wins.

Buffalo, Texas-San Antonio and Western Michigan all missed out on bowl games at the end of the 2017 season despite being bowl eligible. Buffalo and WMU are in the MAC. UTSA is in Conference USA.

The MAC said it will now have a minimum of six bowl tie-ins starting in 2020 with the addition of the Myrtle Beach Bowl. A bowl at Wrigley Field beginning in 2020 had been potentially discussed as another addition to the college football bowl lineup but that seems to be on the backburner.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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