The Liberty Bowl is an annual U.S. American college football bowl game played in December of each year from 1959 to 2007 and in January in 2009 and 2010. The Liberty Bowl was sponsored by AXA Financial and was known as the AXA Liberty Bowl from 1997 to 2003. Since 2004, the game has been sponsored by Memphis-based auto parts retailer AutoZone, and is now called the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. In 1999, the Mountain West Conference did not have an outright champion, as three teams tied for the conference lead. The conference's bid for the game was given to Colorado State.