Freedom Bowl Organizers Halt Planning

The organizer of the financially plagued Freedom Bowl is indefinitely suspending all planning for future games, it announced Wednesday.

The Orange County Sports Assn., which had hoped to stage its 12th postseason college football game in December after not holding a game in 1995, decided to suspend planning based on the pending renovation of Anaheim Stadium.

The Walt Disney Co. agreed this month to pay 70% of the estimated $100 million cost to renovate the facility in exchange for a pledge from the city of Anaheim that no NFL team will be allowed to play there. The agreement wasn’t clear about other forms of football, such as high school playoffs, all-star or college bowl games, but OCSA officials think they have seen the writing on the wall.

“With stadium renovations there are many questions to be answered, such as if that stadium will ever be available to host football games,” said Jerry McGee, OCSA executive director. “If that is the case, we at the OCSA certainly aren’t interested in having a game anywhere outside of the county, so we are postponing our efforts until a stadium does come back on line.”

McGee stopped just short of saying this was the last straw for the event, but indicated that his organization is still trying to repay about $2 million in debts from previous games.