Rose Bowl Joins Football Title Alliance

The Rose Bowl, long a major problem in the process of determining a national college football champion, has become a major part of the solution.

An association of six college conferences, including the Pacific 10 and Big Ten, was announced Tuesday in New York, and its stated purpose is to determine a champion, beginning in 1999.

Dubbed the “Super Alliance” by Big 12 Commissioner Steve Hatchell and driven by as much as $518 million from ABC television, it also includes the Atlantic Coast, Big East and Southeastern conferences and Notre Dame, and has guaranteed the Rose Bowl a game between the No. 1 and 2 teams in the country no later than 2002.

The last time a national championship was decided solely in the Rose Bowl was in 1969, when No. 1 Ohio State beat No. 2 USC, 27-16.

In the 1994 Rose Bowl game, Penn State, then ranked No. 2 in the country, beat Oregon, while No. 1 Nebraska lost to Miami. That fueled the fire for a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup.

Similarly, in 1991, Washington and Miami finished the season undefeated and could not square off in a bowl game to decide a champion because of Washington’s commitment to the Rose Bowl, which features champions of the Pac-10 and Big Ten. The same thing happened in 1978 when USC and Alabama finished undefeated.

The Rose Bowl will be joined by three other bowls, yet to be determined, and each bowl will host the championship game in a rotation.

“I think this is a very significant day for college football because for the first time in modern-day history, we have been able to put together an agreement that will provide us with a true national championship game at the end of the season,” said Roy Kramer, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference.

“And not only a true national championship game, but I think an opportunity for us to really celebrate football in a way we have not been able to do in the past. I am delighted that the Big Ten and Pac-10 and members of the alliance have been able to work out the agreement so that this game can take place.”

The propelling force was at least $296 million from ABC--whose sports president, Steve Bornstein, called the championship game a “television property”--for the four years of its contract with the alliance. That could extend to as much as $518 million if ABC exercises its option for an additional three years, according to a bowl source.

Each of the four bowls will receive $18.5 million a year from the network, which launched a preemptive strike in its college football competition with CBS in closing the deal.

The Super Alliance will replace the Bowl Alliance that extends through 1998 and does not include the Pac-10, Big Ten or Rose Bowl. Though it provided a national champion last season when No. 1 Nebraska beat No. 2 Florida in the Fiesta Bowl, it almost lost the designation of “championship game” when Big Ten member Ohio State was undefeated and ranked No. 2 going into its final regular season game against Michigan. Had Ohio State won that game (it lost), it would have won the Big Ten title and gone to the Rose Bowl ranked first or second, but unable to play either Nebraska or Florida.

“There was a very loud noise from a lot of people who love the Buckeyes saying that something needed to be done about that,” said Andy Geiger, Ohio State’s athletic director.

The solution came when Pac-10 and Big Ten members figured a way to have their cake and eat it too, and then sold the mix to the Rose Bowl, which has had a 50-year association with the two leagues.

“They basically said, ‘We want to continue with the Rose Bowl,’ ” said Harrison Cronk, the Rose Bowl’s football committee chairman, who met with Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hanson in San Francisco on Dec. 9 and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney in Chicago on Dec. 10. “But they also said that they wanted to play for a national championship if they finish No. 1 or No. 2.”

Under the new alliance, the Pac-10 and Big Ten champions will continue to play in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day unless one team is ranked No. 1 or 2 at the end of the regular season. Should one of them be No. 1, it would play for a title in the Rose Bowl against the No. 2 team, regardless of conference, as early as 1999, and the Rose Bowl would forfeit its 2002 title game.

Should the Pac-10 or Big Ten champion be No. 2, it would play in the title game elsewhere--except in 2002--and the Rose Bowl game would feature the other conference’s champion against a team from one of the other leagues.

The Rose Bowl, with the largest TV ratings and highest payout among the bowl games, has long held itself above the national championship fray, and to some extent it still does.

“We prefer to say that we are associated with the alliance,” Cronk said.

The Rose Bowl has been a holdout against the increased commercialization of bowls, which have brought in money from title sponsors to lure teams. Under the new agreement, ABC, which has bought the television and marketing rights to the four bowls that join the alliance, will not have the right to designate a title sponsor for the Rose Bowl.

In other words, the game may become the “Rose Bowl, presented by a snack food company,” but there will be no potato chip painted on the field for the game.

“[The Rose Bowl] was the missing link in what we thought was pretty good,” said Gene Corrigan, the Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner. “I think both the coalition and the alliance have served a good role, but this is the Super Alliance, this is the ultimate, this is what we wanted to do.”

Though the conference ties with the new alliance are set, it remains to be seen which bowls join the Rose in the championship rotation. Under the current alliance, the Fiesta had the first title game, with the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans playing host to this season’s game and the Orange Bowl in Miami having the game in 1998.

Those three bowls will have a preferential negotiating period of 60 days, the starting date yet to be determined, after which the negotiation process will be open to any of the other bowl games.

Though the bids will involve money, seating capacity, geographic area and such extras as free or discount hotel rooms and meals for the competing teams and officials, the criteria for selection have yet to be determined. Other bowls have cast longing eyes at the process.

“Sure, I think the Cotton Bowl sees this as a window of opportunity for both the bowl and the city of Dallas,” said the game’s executive director, Rick Baker.

Under the old alliance, Baker said, the Cotton and Gator bowls had offered more money to get in the championship game rotation than did the Sugar, but that “other considerations” entered the process and the Dallas and Jacksonville, Fla., games were shut out.

Baker said he expected the Gator Bowl to become involved in the bidding process and also cited Disney’s ownership of ABC as a factor that might bring the Citrus Bowl in Orlando--home of DisneyWorld--into the mix.

Regardless of the venue, the conferences see the Super Alliance and a national championship game as a fitting ending to a season.

“We spent a lot of time in the Big Ten and Pac-10 talking with the Tournament of Roses over the past year and worked over the last number of months with the alliance conferences and ABC,” said the Big Ten’s Delaney. “We’re really pleased that the 1-2 game will be played, that the bowl system will be healthier and that the American college football fan will have an opportunity at the end of the year to see some really blockbuster bowl games and see 1 meet 2 in an assured way.”

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Here’s the Deal

What the deal means to the Rose Bowl game, traditionally a matchup of the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions:

* When would title game be in Pasadena?

Every four years. Site of first title game has not been determined, but will be in Rose Bowl no later than 2002.

* If Big Ten and Pac-10 champions play for the title elsewhere, who would play in Rose Bowl?

Officials would pick two other teams from among the bowl alliance (not second-place teams in the Pac-10 or Big Ten).

* If only one of the teams plays for the title somewhere else, what would happen to the other?

It would play in Rose Bowl against an opponent to be picked by the bowl alliance.