[3] Since 2002, Detroit's Ford Field had played host to the Motor City Bowl—later known as the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl for sponsorship reasons; a bowl game between the 8th placed team in the Big Ten Conference and the champion of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), which was first played in 1997 at the Pontiac Silverdome.

In May 2013, ESPN reported that the Detroit Lions were planning to organize a new Big Ten bowl game at Ford Field against an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) opponent—Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany had expressed a desire to revamp the conference's lineup of bowl games for the 2014 season to keep them "fresh".

Detroit Lions president Tom Lewand remarked that "very few" markets could adequately support hosting two major bowl games.

[5][6] Organizers were open to the possibility of moving the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl across the street to Comerica Park, home stadium of the Detroit Tigers, for 2014 as an outdoor game.

[8] The inaugural edition of the bowl was played on December 26, 2014, between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights of the Big Ten and North Carolina Tar Heels of the ACC.

Won (6): Boston College, Duke, New Mexico State, Rutgers, Toledo, Western Michigan