The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl at Detroit's Ford Field is no more, the college football game's executive director confirmed.

"There is no Pizza Bowl for 2014. We will have to see about the future," said Ken Hoffman, the game's longtime top official, via email.

The game, traditionally played the day after Christmas and aired live on, began as thein 1997 and moved to 64,500-seat Ford Field in 2002 from the 80,311-seat Pontiac Silverdome.

The fate of the Pizza Bowl has been in doubt since theannounced in 2013 that they'll host a new bowl matchingandteams at Ford Field in a six-year deal that begins this year.

"If you look at any city right now, there are very, very few that can support two major bowl games," Lions President Tom Lewand said in July 2013, adding that the Lions would be putting all of their support behind the yet-to-be-named Big Ten/ACC bowl.

The Lions-backed college game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Dec. 26, according to the NCAA's official 2014 bowl lineup. That had been the Pizza Bowl's spot in the bowl schedule in the past.

Hoffman told Crain's last year that he'd been in talks with Little Caesars' co-founder Mike Ilitch to possibly relocate the Pizza Bowl across the street to 45,000-seat Comerica Park. That idea has not gone anywhere.

Little Caesars on Aug. 22 issued a statement about the Pizza Bowl relationship, from the chain's senior vice president of global marketing, Edward Gleich: "We work hard to innovate with our marketing and always pay attention to opportunities that also support our hometown of Detroit. If a sponsorship opportunity that makes sense for our business materializes, we'll evaluate it in this context and make the decision at that time."

The Detroit-based pizza chain, founded and owned by the Ilitch family, and the Auburn Hills-basedtook over the Motor City Bowl's title sponsor role in 2009 under a three-year series of annual options worth less than $1 million each.

Both the corporate entity and the franchisees shared the cost of the deal, which included the name change for the bowl game.

The pizza chain replacedas the bowl's primary financial backer. The automaker cut back on its sports marketing and sponsorships amid its bankruptcy struggles.

Little Caesars and its franchisees re-upped the bowl sponsorship deal, still believed to be worth just under $1 million annually, for two years, in a deal announced in 2012. That covered the 2012 and 2013 games.

Detroit's three automakers and thejointly pledged to commit $100,000 annually in 2011 to become the Pizza Bowl's presenting sponsor, which is a step below the naming sponsorship. GM andhad halted involvement as they went through bankruptcies, while Ford had maintained an undisclosed level of financial contribution.

The Pizza Bowl matched bowl-eligible Big Ten andteams, but only three times did Big Ten teams play in the game. The conference often didn't have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill out its slate of bowl tie-ins. However, the Big Ten will have 14 teams this year, in time for the Lions' college bowl game.

Last year's Pizza Bowl sawbeat30-27 in front of 26,259 fans on Dec. 26. Tickets were priced at $30, $45 and $60.

The Pizza Bowl attendance record is 60,624 in 2007, a crowd that watchededge51-48.

The worst attendance in the bowl's history was 23,310 for 2012's Central Michigan victory over, a game played in a blizzard.

Several future notable NFL players played in the Pizza or Motor City bowls, including Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich, Chester Taylor and current Lions backup quarterback Dan Orlovsky.

The participating Pizza Bowl teams each got $750,000. Bowl payout money typically comes from a mixture of corporate sponsorships, broadcast rights fees, ticket sales, merchandise and other sources.

The Pizza Bowl was co-founded by Hoffman and formerfootball coach and athletics director George Perles, who was the bowl's CEO for many years.

The Detroit Lions have not yet disclosed the naming rights sponsor of the new bowl. The game is one of three scheduled for Dec. 26, with the other two being theat 1 p.m. (Big Ten vs. Conference USA) and theat 8 p.m. (ACC vs. AAC). All will be on ESPN.

Rather than specific bowl-eligible teams based on records from each conference, participants in the Lions-backed bowl will be decided after consultation and other bowls determining their ACC and Big Ten teams.

"At the end of each college football season, both conferences will determine their team representatives after discussion between bowl and conference officials to create the best possible matchup," the NFL team said when it announced the bowl's creation.