ROSE BOWL REPORT

Michigan has a No. 1 ranking in more than football. It also has the nation’s top-ranked merchandising operation.

Wolverine backers buy more sweat shirts, caps and souvenirs than fans from any other school, according to the Atlanta-based Collegiate Licensing Co. The company handles licensing contracts for 160 schools, including Michigan.

Florida is second, followed by Penn State. And Nebraska, which is No. 2 in the football poll, falls to No. 8 on the fan shopping list.

Sales of Michigan merchandise exceed $100 million a year, with the university getting about $5 million.

*

Michigan and Washington State want a national television audience to see there’s more to their schools than football players colliding.

Each school gets 60 seconds during the Jan. 1 telecast to present commercials extolling qualities that go beyond the Wolverines’ and Cougars’ rankings.

Michigan plans to run a 30-second spot made two years ago. In it, alumnus and CBS newsman Mike Wallace recites a poem. It is set to orchestral music, with images including a prospective student silhouetted against a barn, and another strolling past the white picket fence outside her home.

Another older, 30-second ad will fill out Michigan’s minute.

Washington State made a new 60-second spot that includes rock music, references to biology labs with “real live dead bodies” and sleeping through classes, and a shot of a student with a pierced eyebrow.