Rose Bowl Tour Promoters Sued for Stranding Wisconsin Fans

Three tour promoters, including one from Los Angeles, who failed to provide Wisconsin football fans with promised Rose Bowl tickets were named in lawsuits filed Tuesday by Wisconsin justice officials.

Attorney General James Doyle said an investigation is continuing into the actions of Tournament of Roses officials, ticket brokers and travel agents who left up to 1,000 Wisconsin fans on the outside of the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 when Wisconsin defeated UCLA, 21-16.

Included in the suit filed in Dane County Circuit Court in Madison was Barker Tours and Travel of Los Angeles, which was 1,145 tickets short for the 1,452 Rose Bowl packages it marketed. Also named were operators in Hamilton, Canada, and Atlanta. For those who were stranded, the average price paid for $46 tickets was more than $290.

Doyle said that the Tournament of Roses’ distribution policy was the underlying cause of the problems. He said parade participants, committee members and others get small numbers of tickets, and almost all end up being sold by scalpers. UCLA, which got more than twice as many game tickets as Wisconsin, sold one block of 4,500 tickets to a single fan, Doyle said.