The NCAA Holiday Bowl has found its home at Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley. San Diego’s annual NCAA football bowl game continues to bring top college football programs to America’s Finest City each winter.

The 47th annual Holiday Bowl returns to Snapdragon Stadium on Monday, December 28, 2026, kickoff at 2:00 PM PT / 5:00 PM ET, airing on The CW. That’s a change worth flagging: the last three Snapdragon-hosted editions aired on Fox, but The CW took over as the Holiday Bowl’s broadcast partner in August 2026. Last year’s game was a one-off, the 46th edition got pushed to January 2, 2026, the first time the bowl has landed in the new year. This year reverts to the traditional late-December date. Conference tie-ins stay roughly the same, an ACC team against a Pac-12 opponent, though “Pac-12” now stretches to former Pac-12 schools playing elsewhere since realignment (last year’s Arizona Wildcats, now in the Big 12, filled that slot). The game follows five days after the SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl’s Snapdragon debut on Dec. 23, its first game back after a decade-long hiatus, giving Snapdragon back-to-back bowl games in the same week for the first time.

2026 Holiday Bowl Tickets

General tickets are already on sale through Ticketmaster and the official Holiday Bowl site. School-specific ticket allotments open once the participating teams are selected, typically the Sunday after conference championship weekend in December.