College Bowl

The first College Bowl match was played on radio in 1953, wherein Northwestern University defeated Columbia University 135-60. The game moved to television between 1959 and 1970, hosted primarily by Allen Ludden[?]. In 1970 invitational tournaments began with the Southeastern Invitational Tournament, and the circuit expanded through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

The game returned to radio for a number of years, with occasional television appearances: 1984 on NBC, hosted by Pat Sajak[?] and 1987 on Disney Channel, hosted by Dick Cavett[?]. (Both won by the University of Minnesota) After a few years of dormancy, College Bowl returned in a non-broadcast format in the 1980s, with a contract with Association of College Unions, International (ACUI)[?].

Unfortunately, in the 1987 and 1988 regional tournaments, College Bowl incorporated recycled questions from previous tournaments, thereby corrupting the results (questions for tournaments need to be fresh, or certain teams will have an inherent advantage).

In addition, the company claimed a copyright on the idea of quizbowl competitions, and attempted to extract a licensing fee from invitational tournaments, and threatened to blacklist schools which hosted invitationals and did not pay the licensing fee. Since ideas could not be copyrighted, this threat was without teeth, but was enough to chill the invitational circuit.

In the 1990s with the rise of the Academic Competition Federation and the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, both with their own national championships, the leverage of College Bowl Incorporated withered, and many schools began to de-affiliate from College Bowl (which has a higher participation cost).

College Bowl retains the ACUI contract, and administers the Honda Challenge at Historically black colleges and universities.

A British version of the televised College Bowl competition was launched as University Challenge in 1962. The programme, presented by Bamber Gascoigne, was very popular and ran until it was taken of the air in 1987. In 1994 the show was resurrected by the BBC with Jeremy Paxman as the new quiz master. The programme remains very popular in Britain.

Reference: Nasr, Carol (1969) The College Bowl Quiz Book. Doubleday, New York.

Links: http://www.collegebowl.com