Pasadena Cashing In on 5th Super Bowl : Finances: Officials are using the event to cultivate a polished image and are trying to keep more of visitors’ money in the city.

In playing host to four previous Super Bowl games, the Rose Bowl’s hometown seemed like a hayseed at a party for jet-setters, city officials say. The NFL championship games were played in what was often portrayed as a dowdy little suburb, but a glamorous buildup took place elsewhere.

“There was all this snickering about Pasadena’s little old lady image and about the football game invading this quiet little town,” Mayor Rick Cole said.

More important, out-of-towners with Super Bowl tickets spent most of their pregame entertainment money in Los Angeles, city officials added.

For Super Bowl XXVII, however, Pasadena finally becomes a full partner in the event, with opportunities to cash in on the pregame hype and to polish the city’s image as a fun, cultured place.

Those are important aims for a medium-size city struggling to balance its budget, city officials say.

Minneapolis, which hosted last year’s Super Bowl, estimated that the event pumped about $100 million into the local economy.

If Pasadena can skim off even a modest portion of that kind of money, the city could get through some dangerous fiscal straits, say city finance officials, who are estimating a budget shortfall of more than $10 million next year.

“The Super Bowl has been such a lucrative event for the major cities of the country,” said City Councilman William E. Thomson Jr., who has represented the council in negotiations to bring the game to Pasadena.

As Sunday’s big game approaches, a tent city around the Rose Bowl is bustling with pregame activities, Pasadena hotels and restaurants are overflowing with customers, city theaters and museums are holding special events, and city finance officers await--with open arms--the inevitable infusions of revenues.

“It all becomes a showcase for our community as a dynamic, multicultural place that people ought to visit, not just because of a football game,” Cole said.

Right now, the city is the site of “Pasadena Celebrates,” a series of entertainment events designed to highlight the city’s “cultural diversity and heritage,” according to its planners.

The events include, among others, a Liza Minnelli concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and a Senior PGA tournament. There was also a concert by the Kodo-Heartbeat Drummers of Japan at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium and there will be a street festival in Old Pasadena this weekend, featuring Dixieland jazz, reggae and “oldies” musicians.

“This was an opportunity to bring two seemingly unconnected elements together--sports and the arts,” said Denise Nelson Nash, the city’s arts commissioner and chairwoman of the series.

At the same time, the NFL Experience, a kind of football theme park, kicked off Thursday in the tent city in Brookside Park, south of the Rose Bowl. Visitors can test their football skills--throwing passes, kicking extra points, catching punts--or just meet football celebrities and learn about NFL history and the behind-the-scenes construction of a network broadcast.

All of this will bring thousands of visitors to the city.

“The hope is that people staying in Pasadena hotels--or any place else--will perhaps go to the NFL Experience, come back for ‘Pasadena Celebrates,’ eat at our restaurants and generally spend money,” Thomson said.

With activities filling parking areas near the Rose Bowl, parking Sunday promises to be a big problem. Police advise those attending the game not to try to park in the limited space around the stadium.

The city has set up park-and-ride areas around the city, with shuttles carrying ticket holders to the stadium.

The parking areas include Union Street and Pasadena Avenue, Green Street and Delacey Avenue, Raymond Avenue and Green Street, Fair Oaks Avenue and Union Street, Raymond Avenue and Union Street and Green Street and Marengo Avenue.