Rose Bowl Picture Develops Much Slower Than Usual

For Southern California’s tourism industry, the Rose Bowl is looking like a whole new ballgame.

The economic payoff from the football game, as well as the Rose Parade, is uncertain this year because of the recession and a reshuffled college schedule that has delayed the determination of the two participating teams.

The parade and bowl game in Pasadena have long been the region’s biggest annual tourism affair, showering the local economy with $200 million. And although most are expecting a strong turnout, which could be an especially important boost for the downtrodden tourism industry, many things remain unsettled.

Usually by this time of year, John Cassady can tally up the hundreds of Newport Beach hotel rooms booked by enthusiastic football fans and alums descending on Southern California for the big game.

But with just a month left before the New Year’s Day tradition begins, the executive director of the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau said nothing has been sold yet. It’s not for a lack of marketing.

His office has been courting alumni of some leading contending schools with footballs adorned with roses, dartboards with roses in the bull’s-eye, even poems and weekly invitations promising “roses would smell better with sea breezes.”

“This is the time of year when we really need a boost,” Cassady said. “The hotels are normally quiet, so we’re doing everything we can to get the fans here. Heck, I’ll probably welcome them at the airport.”

But he and others will have to wait until Dec. 9, when it’ll be officially known which two teams will be playing in the Rose Bowl, which is hosting the national championship game for the first time.

That’s because the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pushed back game schedules. The Rose Bowl also will be played Jan. 3, instead of New Year’s Day, which may or may not be a good thing as far as tourism is concerned.

Add to that the lingering worries about traveling by air and the scaled-back flight schedules and many tourism officials are wondering how many will make the trip to Pasadena this time.

“It should be the biggest event in Southern California in a long, long time, dwarfing the [Democratic National Convention] and any other Rose Bowl,” said Mitch Dorger, executive director of the Tournament of Roses Assn. “It should be. But there are still a lot of unknowns. We just can’t know for sure what people are going to do, not anymore.”

One thing for sure is that the upcoming Rose Bowl won’t be pitting the champions of the Pacific 10 and the Big Ten conferences, breaking a 55-year-old tradition of rivalry between the West Coast and the Midwest.

Under a new rotating system, the Rose Bowl this year is hosting the national championship game. And going into today’s games, the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Gators are No. 1 and No. 2 in the Bowl Championship Series rankings that determine which teams will play for the title. The possibility that at least one team, and maybe two, will be traveling across the country for the Rose Bowl has some a bit concerned how big the following will be.

Each school is allotted 21,000 game tickets. But just how many fans will be up to flying, they wonder, especially with the short notice.

The travel industry has been slowly climbing out of the slump caused by the terrorist attacks. But airline passenger loads are still down 30% from last year, according to the Air Traffic Assn.

“The best scenario in terms of travel would have been Nebraska and Oklahoma, because they both have huge fan clubs that will always travel and like to spend money,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “Plus, it’s a lot easier to get here from those states.”

Still, others said there could be a big upside in a Miami-Florida match-up, given their intense rivalry. “If you have two rivals going after the national championship, I’m thinking tradition will overcome fear,” said Gorger of the Tournament of Roses.

Indeed, Chris Brazda, an alumni spokesman at the University of Florida in Gainesville, thinks it will be impossible to keep Gator fans away from the Rose Bowl, should the team win its next two games and make it there. Nearly 2,000 of the school’s alumni live in Southern California, he said, and an additional 280,000 are scattered throughout the country.

“Florida fans travel very, very well,” Brazda said. “We could fill up all 90,000 seats in Pasadena by ourselves. No problem.”

At the same time, the recession and the still-somber mood of a nation at war could dissuade some people from coming. Rose Bowl tour packages being marketed in Miami are going for as much as $2,000 per person. And they don’t all include a game ticket, which has a face value of $150.

Tourism officials are hoping visitors will arrive on New Year’s Day for the Rose Parade and stay the extra two days until the game, which could translate into millions of dollars of additional spending.

At the moment, only five hotels--properties chosen by tournament officials and assigned to host both teams, both marching bands and the media--know how many rooms they’ll ultimately need. Last year, the teams were decided a week before Thanksgiving, and hotels in Pasadena and the surrounding areas were jammed with bookings by Dec. 1.

About 300 rooms at both the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills and the Park Hyatt in Century City have been set aside for each Rose Bowl-bound team. But Gino Pesanti, assistant director of corporate events for the Hilton, said the Beverly Hilton is still “on standby” to see what team it will welcome, which will determine what banners to order, school colors to decorate with and team pins to buy for hotel workers. The Hilton and Hyatt have been tending to such details for the last three years when they hosted other Rose Bowl teams.

“We’ve done all of this enough that it shouldn’t be a problem, even with less time to get ready,” Pesanti said. “But this is the national championship, so it’s a much bigger deal. We have to do it up right.”

Other hotels are left targeting alumni associations and booster clubs, several at schools they have never had to market to before. If, for example, Miami defeats Virginia Tech today, the Hurricanes will play in their first Rose Bowl game ever.

Amy Powers, a spokeswoman for University of Miami’s alumni association, says travel packages are tentatively being arranged. But she was hesitant to say much more.

“We don’t want to jinx anything,” she said. “We’ve got one more game to go. If we win, we’ll see you in California.”

Cassady, of the Newport Beach visitors bureau, will be rooting for Miami from his home about 3,000 miles away. While his office has been wooing the alumni associations of five other teams as well, including Florida, Nebraska and Texas, Cassady says it’s Miami that promises the biggest payoff for Newport Beach so far. From the feedback he’s been getting, Cassady is expecting Hurricane fans would fill 1,000 of the city’s 3,000 hotel rooms should they win today.

“There’s no doubt Miami would be really good to Newport Beach,” Cassady said. “We want them.”