Rose Bowl, Parade, Tourism Riding on UCLA Today

In this most Balkanized of metropolises, today offers that rarest of opportunities: the chance for all of Greater Los Angeles to speak with one voice.

And that voice is saying: Go UCLA!

Far more than a football game is at stake when the Washington State Cougars and the UCLA Bruins meet in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Better and more important games have been played there, but few have mattered so much to people who are not fans of either team playing.

Because of the oddities of the process by which football bowl matchups are determined, the outcome of today’s game could bear on the future of the Rose Bowl, the receipts of the local tourist industry, the bank accounts of the region’s two best-known universities, and even the long-term health of the Rose Parade, which is heavily subsidized by money made on the Rose Bowl game.

Just as in the 2000 presidential election, it is a series of little-known rules -- and a shadowy group of decision-makers in South Florida -- that are causing trouble for everybody else.

Today’s game involves a local team at a local place, but the object of much of the excitement -- and worry -- are two schools that aren’t playing: USC and the University of Iowa. They would almost certainly meet in the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl if UCLA wins.

USC wants to play in the Rose Bowl, so this week has seen the strange sight of its coach, Pete Carroll, publicly urging Trojan fans to pack the Rose Bowl to root on their archrival UCLA. (They are expected to comply).

In Iowa, fans are pulling for UCLA for even more practical reasons. Thousands of Iowans have purchased plane tickets, travel packages, even Rose Parade seats -- not all are refundable -- in expectation that their team is headed to Pasadena.

“There’s a lot on the line Saturday,” says Ron Okum, past president of the Tournament of Roses and current chairman of the Tournament’s football committee. Okum, like other Rose Bowl officials, is officially neutral in today’s contest, but he also concedes that the game would prefer a traditional Big Ten team, in this case Iowa.

“The only statement we can make is that the traditions of the Tournament of Roses are important for more than just football, and we’d like to see those traditions continued.”

As a champion of the Big Ten, a Rose Bowl berth for Iowa is traditional. But unfortunately for Angelenos and Iowans, tradition may not hold.

That possibility comes at a particularly anxious moment for big events such as the Tournament of Roses. The clamor among sports fans and TV executives for a college football playoff have led to questions about the future of the Rose Bowl game when the current TV contract expires in 2006. And with changes in public taste and the recent demise of the Orange Bowl parade, some Tournament members have expressed concern about the long-term health of the Rose Parade.

“Times are changing. I used to say there will always be a Rose Parade, or at least a Rose Parade like the one we have now,” said Bill Lofthouse, the leading builder of Rose Parade floats. “I still believe that, but I’m not so sure.”

The Tournament of Roses first held a first Rose Bowl game in 1902. The game was one of many entertainments (chariot races were tried) to supplement the floral parade that runs down Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s Day.

Since 1947, the Rose Bowl has pitted, first by tradition and later by contract, the champions of the Pacific 10 Conference, which includes schools from Arizona to Washington, and the Big Ten Conference, which consists of 10 universities across the central and upper Midwest, plus Penn State.

Over the years, the Rose Bowl has been the most consistently popular and financially successful of the college postseason bowl games. The game earns $27 million in TV rights. Much of that money is passed on to the Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences.

But over the years, die-hard college football fans -- and the TV networks that market to them -- loudly demanded a true national championship game, drawing the two best college teams regardless of conference championships. Facing that pressure, the Tournament of Roses entered into a contract with the Bowl Championship Series.

When the contract was signed, the Tournament said the Rose Bowl would maintain the Pac-10 versus Big Ten format for three out of every four years. In the fourth year, the Rose Bowl itself would be the national championship game.

But the BCS contract had a lesser-known rule: If the Pac-10 or Big Ten champion qualified for the national championship game, the Rose Bowl would lose that team to the championship game.

Rose Bowl officials figured they would merely pick up a second-place team. This fall, Tournament President Gary Thomas has said repeatedly in public appearances that this year’s game would pit a Big Ten school against a Pac-10 school.

Thomas and his colleagues acknowledge that they did not fully comprehend the fine print. This year, the Big Ten has co-champions: Ohio State and Iowa. Ohio State has qualified for the national championship game, in the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz. Iowa looked like the clear and desirable backup for the Rose Parade.

But under rules too complex for anyone other than the most die-hard football trivia buffs, the Miami-based Orange Bowl committee might be able to grab Iowa when officials selections are made Sunday.

The Orange Bowl has declined to make an official announcement. And another game taking place today, pitting the heavily favored University of Miami against Virginia Tech, could play a role in determining whether the Orange Bowl is allowed to pick Iowa before the Rose Bowl can.

The worst scenario for the Rose Bowl would be if Miami wins, as expected, and UCLA loses. In that case, according to strong hints that have been dropped in college football circles, the Orange Bowl will pluck Iowa from the Rose Bowl.

That would leave the Rose Bowl with a game pitting Washington State -- which would win the Pac-10 championship by beating UCLA -- against any number of schools, none of them from the Big Ten.

Big Ten schools are highly valued by Tournament officials who love the tens of thousands of fans who fill the Rose Bowl and by people in the tourism industry, which counts on the spending of Midwesterners who escape winter for a week of visiting Southern California tourist attractions.

“It’s safe to say there have been surprises in how all of this works out that we didn’t anticipate,” says Mitch Dorger, chief executive of the Tournament of Roses. “I think some things surfaced this year in the rules and the application of the rules that were different than what we expected.”

Much of the state of Iowa also is disappointed at the turn of events. Chris Bavolack, vice president of the University of Iowa’s alumni association, said the Rose Bowl was more appealing than the Orange Bowl to Iowa fans. The alumni association has sold nearly all of its 3,000 available Rose Bowl packages, including nearly 1,000 deluxe deals for $2,199.

“The Rose Bowl is a Big Ten tradition, it’s where the Big Ten fans want to be,” he said. “Right now we’re in the process of contacting our Rose Bowl tour participants so they can tell us if they’re interested in going to a game other than the Rose Bowl.”

Alice Loff, manager of group travel services for the Automobile Club of Iowa, said her customers mostly just hope UCLA wins today. “We’ve had to book clients on a tentative basis, so that no matter what happens Sunday, our backs will be covered. It’s really a lot of wasted time and effort. Ask me if I’m a fan of the BCS. I’m not.”

Tour operators say their packages are refundable. But Ken Bruce, executive vice president for Dodds Athletic Tours, said many Iowa fans booked travel individually and will not be so lucky. Rose Parade seats are nonrefundable after Nov. 1. And tighter airline restrictions mean an Orange Bowl bid could cost Iowa fans hundreds of dollars in switch fees.

One Iowa group headed to Pasadena no matter what happens today is the 203-member Pella Community High School band, which received an invitation to participate in the Tournament of Roses parade in November 2001. Band director Guy Blair said an additional 200 friends and family members have arranged to join the band.

“I’m planning on going to the game,” Pella band member Jonathan Vermeer said. “I’ve already got my tickets; so do a lot of my friends. If Iowa’s in it, it’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We need UCLA to beat Washington State.”

In Pasadena, concerns run deeper than tickets that can’t be used. Losing Iowa would be a blow to the identity of the Rose Bowl. And the Rose Bowl is the golden goose that makes possible the weeklong Pasadena festival that culminates with the Rose Parade.

Most of the TV revenues from the game go to the conferences of the teams that play, but the Tournament of Roses takes enough to give itself critical financial room.

The Tournament, for example, does not have to charge TV networks and stations a fee to broadcast the parade. As a result, NBC, CBS, and ABC and local TV stations all broadcast the parade. That extraordinary exposure is a critical reason for the parade’s quality.

Corporations will sponsor expensive floats, high school bands will raise $500,000 to play in the parade, top-notch equestrians will ship their horses to Pasadena -- all because of that huge TV audience.

Pasadena taxpayers also benefit indirectly but from game revenues. Though New Year’s festivals such as the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl receive direct public subsidies, the largess from the Rose Bowl helps the Tournament pay for all the costs of putting on the Rose Parade: from police overtime to street repairs to rents for use of the city-owned Rose Bowl stadium and city-owned warehouses where floats are built.

Under its contract with the city, the Tournament pays Pasadena more than $1 million annually -- plus 25% of any overall profits.

Privately, Tournament officials worry that this year’s episode could cost the Rose Bowl -- and thus the entire Tournament -- in the long term. But publicly, Tournament leaders say they aren’t too worried.

Paradoxically, the only Southern Californians who stand to lose from a UCLA victory today are UCLA fans.

By beating Washington State, UCLA would push its archrival USC into the Rose Bowl. That would give USC a boost in recruiting better players to beat UCLA.

And a win could cost UCLA hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Pac-10 is already guaranteed to receive $13.5 million because USC has qualified for one of the lucrative BCS games. If a second conference member qualifies, which Washington State can do by defeating UCLA, the conference will receive an extra $4.5 million of BCS revenue.