Pasadena Awarded ’93 Game : NFL: Phoenix tentatively gets Super Bowl in 1996. Apparently, that is tied to new King holiday vote.

At the end of a long day of debating, and a few arguments, Pasadena was voted the 1993 Super Bowl at the NFL convention Tuesday night after a successful presentation by the 15-person Los Angeles-area delegation headed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

“I’m ecstatic,” Bradley said after his city eliminated San Diego on the second ballot. “This was a joint effort by many people representing Pasadena, Anaheim and other (Southern California) cities who worked hard and effectively.”

The game, Super Bowl XXVII, will be played Jan. 31, 1993 at the Rose Bowl. It will be the seventh Los Angeles-area Super Bowl. San Diego was trying to get its second.

Earlier in the day, in a surprise compromise development, Super Bowl XXX had been conditionally awarded to Phoenix for January of 1996.

The condition was not spelled out by the NFL, but it was obvious to everyone here from Arizona. The game will be played in Phoenix only if the state’s voters approve an annual paid Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the scheduled 1992 referendum.

As recommended by NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, the 1993 Super Bowl was formally removed from Arizona just before the owners approved a resolution granting the 1996 game to the Arizona metropolis.

A vote by the state’s citizens rejecting a King holiday triggered the NFL’s reaction after it had apparently selected Phoenix at last spring’s convention.

Bradley, Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the others in both delegations spent 3 1/2 hours waiting in lobbies outside the meeting room while the owners worked out the compromise with Phoenix Cardinal owner Billy Bidwill.

Said Bidwill: “I believe the political situation in Phoenix has changed dramatically. I think the ’92 vote will pass.”

Then, in a brief presentation, the Los Angeles delegation stressed the value of its trump card--the 102,000-seat Rose Bowl--which seats about 28,000 more than San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

That means about $4 million in additional revenues.

Many owners who voted to take the game from Phoenix had severe misgivings.

“I sympathize with the people in Phoenix, I really do,” said Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns and one of the league’s influential owners. “But I don’t see how we had any choice.”

“I’m very disappointed in the NFL,” Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., said from Washington. “Those who throw rocks in glass houses, had better look at yourself.”

DeConcini, who had sent a sharply worded letter to Tagliabue, said he was encouraged the issue may affect the NFL. “Maybe they looked inside themselves. They have no black owners, only one black coach and no black general managers,” he said.

REPLAY RETURNS: NFL will use replay cameras to aid officials again in 1991. C5