The tenth edition of the game previously known as the St. Petersburg Bowl, it featured the Temple Owls of the American Athletic Conference against the FIU Panthers of Conference USA.
It was one of the 2017–18 bowl games that concluded the 2017 FBS football season.
This was the first edition of the bowl to use the Gasparilla naming, a nod to the legend of José Gaspar, a mythical pirate who is the inspiration for Tampa's Gasparilla Pirate Festival.
Sponsored by lawnmower manufacturing company Bad Boy Mowers, the game was officially known as the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl.
The game featured the Temple Owls against the FIU Panthers and was the first-ever meeting between the two schools.