Yep, the Dollar General Bowl is the new name for the GoDaddy Bowl

You may have been a little confused during the bowl announcements this season when you heard the “Dollar General Bowl” come across your phone screen. It’s not a new bowl, just a new sponsor.

This bowl has been in Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala. since 1999 and known as the GoDaddy.com Bowl from 2011-15. Dollar General — you know, that store you go to when you need a generic item you don’t want to spend a ton of money on — was announced as the bowl’s new sponsor in mid-August.

Dollar General was founded in 1939 and ranked #139 [sic] on the Fortune 500 list in 2016 with $20.4 billion in fiscal year 2015 net sales. The company provides everyday low prices, value and convenience to customers on products most used and replenished from America’s most trusted brands and its private, 100 percent satisfaction guaranteed brands.

Dollar General is now this bowl’s third sponsor. Prior to GoDaddy, GMAC Mobile, which stands for General Motors Acceptance Corporation, sponsored it from 2000-2010. In its first year in 1999, it was sponsored by Mobile Alabama, Inc.

Bowl games changing sponsors isn’t all that uncommon. Bowl sponsorships have contracts, and when they’re expired, that sponsor can decide whether to renew things. We’ve seen even the biggest bowl games, such as the Fiesta Bowl, change sponsors — the Fiesta is now sponsored by Playstation, but it will always still be Tostitos in our hearts.

So, what happened with GoDaddy, the web hosting company? Some of it had to do with where it was going as a company.

“GoDaddy was very good to us,” bowl president Jerry Silverstein said via AL.com. “They achieved their goals — which was to go public, and to gain better brand recognition. ... They have decided to take their marketing dollars and move across the pond, internationally. They’ve gotten out of NASCAR, they’ve gotten out of (college football).”

Dollar General’s Senior Manager of Public Relations Crystal Ghassemi hopes that the company sponsoring a bowl game will achieve brand awareness, as one can assume most bowl sponsor companies typically set out to do.

“We know that a lot of our customers are big college football fans,” Ghassemi said. “So we look at this as at an [sic] opportunity to give ourselves a national brand awareness, as well as get involved in something our customers are passionate about. We’re really excited about the opportunity.”

Dollar General has nearly 13,000 stores in 43 states across the country, including hundreds of locations in Alabama.

This year’s matchup features Ohio and Troy, and the game will kick off at 8 p.m. ET and air on ESPN. This time around, we’ll just have to go without seeing Danica Patrick in GoDaddy commercials.