Stars battle it out at the 2013 Celebrity Beach Bowl

Actors, models, musicians, and athletes gathered in New Orleans, Saturday, to participate in DIRECTV’s seventh annual Celebrity Beach Bowl, held at the DTV SuperFan Stadium at Mardi Gras World.

The Celebrity Beach Bowl was the creation of Jon Gieselman, DIRECTV’s senior vice president of advertising and public relations. Gieselman told Forbes, “Seven years ago, I was sitting in my office with a friend of mine who runs an agency that we work with. It was like December 15 and it was late at night and we were talking about things we wanted to build. I said that we should do something around the Super Bowl. Together, we came up with an idea of having celebrities and retired NFL greats play flag football on the beach.”

This year, a variety of celebrities participated in the game, including Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, Neil Patrick Harris, Josh Hutcherson, Maria Menounos, and Lil Wayne, according to The Huffington Post.

The Washington Post added that former NFL pro Michael Strahan and Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson also made appearances at the event.

All participants donned blue jerseys with the DIRECTV logo.