The top-placing teams from the GLVC and G-MAC not qualifying for the NCAA Division II Football Championship playoffs receive an invitation to compete.

[2] The creation of America's Crossroads Bowl was announced in April 2019, at a joint press conference including officials of the GLVC, the G-MAC, the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, and the city of Hobart.

[3] In the seasons prior to the creation of the bowl, neither the GLVC nor the G-MAC had ever sent more than one team to the Division II playoffs, and it was assumed the game would match the second-place finishers of the two conferences.

[4][5][6][7][8] The GLVC sent third-place Truman State as its representative to the inaugural game, because Lindenwood and Indianapolis both qualified for the Division II playoffs in 2019, [9] After the 2020 game was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Truman State once again represented the GLVC in 2021 as a third-place team, when Lindenwood qualified for the playoffs and Indianapolis declined the bowl bid.

The setting for A Christmas Story--the fictional northwest Indiana town of Hohman--is based on Hammond, the real-life hometown of its author, humorist Jean Shepherd.