New Year's Six

New Year's Six
A break in play during the 2017 edition of the Cotton Bowl Classic, one of the New Year's Six
In operation	2014–present
Preceded by	BCS (1998–2013) Bowl Alliance (1995–1997) Bowl Coalition (1992–1994)
Number of New Year's Six games	Six plus the National Championship game
Television partner(s)	ESPN (2014–present)
Most New Year's Six appearances	Ohio State (10)
Most New Year's Six wins	Alabama (9)
Most New Year's Six championships	Alabama (3)
Conference with most appearances	SEC (24)
Conference with most game wins	SEC (20)
Conference with most championships	SEC (6)
Last championship game	January 8, 2024
Current champion	Michigan

The New Year's Six, sometimes abbreviated as NY6, are the following NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowl games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl. These games are played annually on or around New Year's Day and represent six of the ten oldest bowl games played at the FBS level.

These six top-tier bowl games rotate the hosting of the two College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal games, which determine the teams that play in the final College Football Playoff National Championship game.^[1] The rotation is set on a three-year cycle with the following pairings: Rose–Sugar, Orange–Cotton, and Peach-Fiesta. The National Championship game may be considered part of the New Year's Six, depending on context. When the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams in 2024, the New Year's Six will host the Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds.^[2]

Using the final CFP rankings, the selection committee seeds and pairs the top four teams and determines the participants for the other four non-playoff New Year's Six bowls that are not hosting the semifinals that year. These four non-playoff bowls are also referred to as the Selection Committee bowl games. These 6 games focus on the top 12 teams in the rankings; to date during the College Football Playoff era (2014–2023 football seasons), only 12 of the 120 teams selected by the committee have been ranked lower than 12th.

Overall, 12 teams are selected each football season for these major, top-tier bowls. These are required to include the champions of the "Power Five" conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC). In addition, the highest-ranked champion from the "Group of Five" conferences (The American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt) is guaranteed a berth if the group's top team is not in the playoff.^[3]