Rose Bowl Feels the Y2K Ticket Malaise

Fearful of Y2K-related havoc and unimpressed by an apparent mismatch between Stanford and favored Wisconsin, college football fans are bucking tradition by giving Saturday’s Rose parade and Rose Bowl game the cold shoulder.

Because only about 1,000 game tickets are sold to the public and most of the rest are earmarked for the participating schools and the Pacific 10 and Big Ten conferences, the game will be sold out for the 53rd consecutive year. Tickets, however, are readily available through brokers and at Internet auction sites, where some would-be sellers have drawn no bids for prime seats at or below the $110 face value.

“It’s a sellout, but kind of a mild sellout, if there is such a thing,” said Jim Muldoon, assistant commissioner, public relations, for the Pac-10. “Both schools sold their ticket allotments, but I don’t see an enormous clamor for more tickets.”

Demand for the 70,000 parade tickets is also weak, with some $65 seats at the corner of Orange Grove Avenue and Colorado Boulevard selling Monday for $50.

Ticket brokers blame media reports about possible Y2K problems for chilling interest in the parade and the game.

Compounding that, some say, are high prices and minimum-stay requirements at local hotels, fear of travel on that day and a suspicion that the game won’t be much of a cliffhanger.

“Sales are softer than Wisconsin cheese,” said Jeff Johnson, of the Night on the Town Ticket Service in Covina. “People are afraid of the Y2K thing. They aren’t willing to travel to this game over the New Year.”

Said Curt Autenrieth, of Southern California Tickets in Pasadena: “This Rose Bowl is dismal for the same reason that Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles shows aren’t selling--the press and the media have made the Y2K thing that was going to be a big party into a big disaster. Three-quarters of people are staying locked up in their houses. Many of them probably have their grandfather’s old hunt gun nearby, just in case. It’s sad.”

A computer software glitch that could cause some computers to misread dates in 2000 as 1900 has raised concerns that power supplies, water and sewage systems, transportation networks and other key infrastructures could be disrupted on New Year’s Day. Government agencies and airport officials are also taking precautions against possible terrorist attacks during the holiday period.

Scott Goldberg, president of All Season Tickets Inc. in Tarzana, said ticket demand will be down dramatically this year. He said his company has sold 400 to 700 Rose Bowl tickets each year since 1992 but will fall far short of that figure this year.

“We’ve sold 112, and we’re done, I think,” Goldberg said Monday. “Tickets are going for $150 and up. In the past six years, the cheapest I’ve seen tickets was $200 to $225. Some of the good games, they’ve sold for $400 or $500.

Goldberg said he saw almost no interest from big corporations, which usually buy large blocks of tickets from brokers, then give the tickets to employees or clients. A combination of Y2K anxiety and hotel operators setting high prices and minimum stays for New Year’s Eve has discouraged corporate and individual buyers.

“This used to be a corporate event, people who would come no matter who was playing,” Goldberg said. “But this year, people want to stay home. Now, you knock it down to a local event, and you have Stanford versus Wisconsin in Los Angeles, and this is the third time Wisconsin has been in it in 1/8seven 3/8 years. And Stanford is not a highly regarded football school.

“Even if there’s late interest, it’s going to be at the game, and the brokers are not going to sell it.”

Even Wisconsin fans, whose 1994 frenzy for the Badgers’ first Rose Bowl appearance in 31 years sent prices skyrocketing and left many travel agencies short of tickets, seem to have become blase.

Wisconsin sold its 25,138 allotted tickets, as Stanford did with its allotment of 32,064. However, the contingent arriving Wednesday with the University of Wisconsin Alumni Assn., the school’s official tour operator and largest organizer of bowl tours, has shrunk to 4,000. That’s down 2,500 from 1994 and several hundred from last year, according to Sheri Hicks, director of alumni travel for the association.

“What we’ve found, as far as our tour packages and who’s coming is, it’s a lot of new people,” she said. “Last year we saw a lot of the same people as the game in 1994. The majority this time have never gone before, people who said, ‘I missed it last year, but I’m not missing it this time.’ ”

Anticipating heavy demand last year for its game against UCLA, Wisconsin officials scrambled to get 600 tickets from other Big Ten schools, only to lose $60,000 when the tickets arrived too late for fans to book hotels and flights to California and get the tickets in hand. This year, after holding a lottery for season ticket-holders and satisfying local demand, the university got out of the ticket business.

“The secondary market might be a little soft, but I think everyone who wanted tickets got them,” said Pat Richter, Wisconsin’s athletic director.

That appears to be true of fans of the Stanford Cardinal, which will make its first Rose Bowl appearance since 1972. The university subsidized tickets for students, cutting the cost to $55, and its official Rose Bowl tour package is sold out.

“It started out where people were rushing to buy tickets, and we still have some people looking for tickets and trying to get there,” said Stanford Associate Athletic Director Darrin Nelson. “But I think demand has definitely died down. Any time you make a purchase, you do it on impulse. . . .

“I think demand is low for a couple of reasons. Wisconsin has been there a few times recently, and not a lot of people expect us to be competitive. We’re kind of a surprise.”

John Schultz, president of Front Row Center Ticket Service in Los Angeles, agreed that the potential for a boring game has lowered the appeal. That the Rose Bowl won’t determine the national champion--it will be decided Jan. 4 in the Sugar Bowl between Virginia Tech and Florida State--may also be reducing fan interest.

But Schultz sees Y2K and costs as perhaps the overriding causes of the lukewarm interest in the game and surrounding festivities.

“Even if people are thinking of coming out, they’re finding hotels are setting a five-night minimum,” he said. “That’s happened in Las Vegas, it’s true of the Eagles 1/8New Year’s Eve concert at the Staples Center 3/8. I think a lot of places overestimated the amount people would be willing to pay and overestimated the demand.

“It’s always a popular game, and they always have a full crowd and it’s a beautiful day. From a popularity standpoint, that will never change. But every day, you read the paper and see news reports that airports are heightening security in case of Y2K problems, and people are saying, ‘Why travel and take the risks?’ I know people who bought Eagles tickets months ago and are now looking to sell them. Even if they wanted to go and thought about staying in a hotel overnight, they’re finding hotels are setting three-night stays, and who wants to stay in downtown L.A. for three nights?”

Even some mid-level hotels on East Colorado Boulevard near the parade route are charging $300 for the night.

A few feet away, said Johnson of Night on the Town, “I can get the best seat in the house for the parade for a very reasonable price.”

Should the worst happen and Y2K problems actually arise, Pasadena may be a good place to be.

“We’ve got our own power station,” said Robert Person, assistant to the city manager. “And we’ve carefully checked every city computer system and we’ve got more cops per square mile than anyone.”

* ROSE BOWL, PARADE MUSEUM

A five-day exhibit on the history of the Tournament of Roses opens today. B1