New Twist in Ticket Dispute : Rose Bowl: Businessman with UCLA connections was allowed to buy 4,000 tickets to Jan. 1 game.

The aftermath of the Rose Bowl ticket controversy took a strange twist Wednesday, when it was learned that a longtime UCLA official, booster and friend of Coach Terry Donahue was allowed to purchase 4,000 tickets for this year’s game.

The revelation that Angelo M. Mazzone III, a UCLA graduate, former Bruin associate athletic director and current Westside businessman, received the large allotment came in the wake of Tuesday’s announcement by State of Wisconsin officials that they were filing lawsuits against three travel firms that allegedly reneged of promises of Rose Bowl tickets for Badger fans.

This year’s Rose Bowl, in which Wisconsin beat UCLA, 21-16, became one of the most sought-after tickets in the history of the game. The Badgers hadn’t been to the Rose Bowl since 1963, and their appearance here generated ticket demand that caught even the most veteran ticket brokers by surprise.

The Wisconsin attorney general’s office estimated, in the statement Tuesday, that as many as 1,000 Badger fans were deprived of tickets for the game that they had been promised.

The statement from the State of Wisconsin listed concerns about, among other things, the fact that UCLA had allowed one person to purchase a block of 4,000 tickets. No name was mentioned in that statement, and when Joseph D. Mandel, vice chancellor of legal affairs at UCLA, was asked about it Wednesday, he declined to name the ticket purchaser. Later, Mandel called The Times and said that Mazzone was willing to have his name released publicly as the buyer.

Peter Dalis, athletic director at UCLA, said Wednesday night that Donahue had no knowledge of Mazzone’s ticket purchase “until I told him Wednesday afternoon.” Dalis, admitting the two were longtime friends, said, “No, Terry Donahue was not involved in any of the ticket distribution of UCLA’s Rose Bowl allocation.”

Donahue could not be reached for comment.

Dalis described the sequence of events that led to Mazzone’s purchase:

“Angelo mentioned to us just prior to the USC game (which UCLA needed to win to make the Rose Bowl) that he’d be interested in buying some Rose Bowl tickets if we went,” Dalis said. “I told him that I couldn’t make any commitment at that time, because I didn’t know what the rest of our needs would be.”

UCLA beat USC at the Coliseum, 27-21, on Nov. 20. On Dec. 1, according to Dalis, UCLA officials, including himself, were told in a meeting with Tournament of Roses officials that the Rose Bowl people did not want a repeat of the previous year’s situation, when the University of Washington played Michigan and Washington ended up eating approximately $240,000 in tickets.

“We went back, added up all our prospects for ticket sales and realized that we were well short of selling our 41,000 allotment,” Dalis said.

So, on Dec. 2, three days before Wisconsin clinched the other spot in the Rose Bowl by beating Michigan State in Tokyo, UCLA officials contacted Mazzone and made the commitment for his large request.

On about Dec. 30, according to Dalis, Mazzone made a $100,000 contribution to the school’s athletic scholarship fund. Dalis said that was part of the discussion when the large ticket purchase was originally proposed.

Whether Mazzone anticipated the huge demand and hot market for Rose Bowl tickets or was merely helping out his alma mater with a large ticket purchase--something Dalis said he has done many times in the past--could not be established. Mazzone did not return frequent calls.

The large block purchase, coupled with the controversy over angry Wisconsin fans, triggered economic speculation.

Mazzone paid face value of $46 for each of the 4,000 tickets, school officials said. So his total outlay was $184,000 for the tickets, plus the $100,000 endowment contribution to athletic scholarships at UCLA.

Area ticket brokers contacted by The Times said they paid $85 a ticket for poor seats, and more than $1,000 for choice seats, in the days leading up to the game. Had Mazzone sold 2,000 of his lesser tickets for a profit of $100 each, and the other 2,000 of his better tickets for a profit of $200 each, he would have generated $600,000, or a net profit after purchase price and contribution of $316,000.

Mazzone, 44, of Bel-Air, owns Qualified Benefits, a Woodland Hills real estate development company that also administers pension plans. Dalis said that, to the best of his knowledge, Mazzone is also involved in a travel business that puts together tour packages.

UCLA officials, who said it is common practice for schools to sell tickets to boosters, dismissed any notion of wrongdoing, either legal or ethical. Ticket scalping is not illegal in California, except on the premises of the event.

“I think a lot of UCLA people sold tickets to someone else,” said Dalis. “We often sell tickets to corporations who might sell tickets to someone else.”

Mazzone has known Donahue for more than 20 years and previously published stories on his relationship with Donahue said that he has assisted the UCLA coach in financial planning.

In a news conference earlier this week, Wisconsin Atty. General Jim Doyle urged Rose Bowl officials to change the way they distribute tickets, saying the current system leads to scalping.

He mentioned the sale of the tickets to a single buyer (Mazzone) as an egregious example of the problem.

“Much of the problem of what happened in California stems directly from the ticket distribution system that is utilized . . . a system that leads to ticket scalping in California,” Doyle said.

--Times staff writers Richard Winton and Elliott Almond contributed to this story.