Hot! Hot! Hot!

Tickets? Who needs Rose Bowl tickets?

Anybody.

Everybody.

Demand for the Jan. 1 game between top-ranked USC and No. 4 Michigan has far exceeded the supply, testing ticket buyers who have had to be more resourceful than usual.

“Everybody who has driven by USC at one time in their life has called for tickets, but I haven’t had any tickets for weeks,” Mitch Dorger, Rose Bowl chief executive, said Friday during the teams’ tour of Disneyland.

Dorger estimated that there was twice as much demand for tickets as were available.

USC received and sold its allotment of 32,000.

Michigan received and sold its allotment of 26,200.

The other nine Pacific 10 Conference schools split almost 5,000 more tickets. The other 10 Big Ten schools got roughly 2,500 to divide among themselves. An additional 20,000 went to the Tournament of Roses. The remainder of the 91,000 tickets were going, going, gone in a matter of hours during a public sale through TicketMaster. Sponsors such as ABC, which will broadcast the game, also were guaranteed a certain number of seats.

“Tickets move,” said Jim Muldoon, Pac-10 assistant commissioner in charge of public relations, trying his best to explain bowl ticket sales in a free-market economy.

“They go from A to B. Well, it’s more like they go from A to B to C to D. Every Rose Bowl is different. This is a high-demand game, primarily because of USC. It is a tougher ticket this year. The best way to judge it is to see what people are getting on Ebay.”

Tickets are out there, but it takes a bit more time and effort to get them than in the past.

Ebay, the on-line auction house, was doing a brisk business Friday afternoon, with pairs going to bidders of up to twice the $125 face value per ticket.

Tickets also were available through ticket brokers such as Barry’s Tickets, ranging from less than $300 to more than $1,200 for a seat on the 50-yard line, and tour operators such as PrimeSport International, starting at $1,085, which included extras such as a three-night hotel stay at Marina del Rey.

“One way to go is to go through the other schools,” Muldoon said. “Try Washington State. There’s more than one way [to get tickets].”

One fan, a Trojan alum who did not wish to be named, joined the UCLA athletic booster club and got his Rose Bowl tickets through the Bruin athletic department. He knows others who are too true to their school but still need tickets.

USC and Michigan each had ticket plans in place well before they accepted bids to play in the Rose Bowl. For USC, that meant top athletic department donors were the first in line, with season-ticket holders coming next in a lottery system.

The Sugar Bowl, matching Louisiana State and Oklahoma in the bowl championship series title game Jan. 4 at New Orleans, gives each school only 16,000 tickets apiece. There was no public sale of tickets this year because all 72,000 seats in the Superdome were contractually obligated to the schools, sponsors, season-ticket holders and tour operators.

“The good thing for us is the Rose Bowl gave us twice as many tickets as the Sugar Bowl and we were able to accommodate a greater amount of people,” said Tim Tessalone, USC sports information director. “Whether it was the Sugar or the Rose, the demand exceeded the supply. We tried to be fair to as many people as possible. We’ve been able to accommodate as many people as possible.”

The process hasn’t been as smooth as one USC season-ticket holder would have liked, however.

Frank Bignami of Torrance said he entered the school’s lottery and received four tickets to the game, two more than he was supposed to get. USC’s ticket office then called to say he had to exchange the four for two new ones Monday. He was told by the caller that he’ll be arrested if he tries to use the four.

“I’m trying to coax my stepfather into going to jail with me,” cracked Bignami, who said he was willing to pay for the extra seats. “It’s kind of comical and kind of annoying.”

For Michigan, it’s kind of fun.

When the Wolverines played in various Florida bowl games the past five seasons, university ticket manager Marty Bodnar worried about selling his allotment of 12,000 to 15,000 tickets.

“This time it wasn’t so much selling out our allotment but fairly and equitably distributing the tickets,” Bodnar said.

Michigan offered two tickets to every season-ticket holder. Some donors were offered four to eight seats. Students bought 2,500 tickets and the alumni association got 6,500.

“A lot of people wanted more than two tickets,” Bodnar said. “A lot of phone calls you took, people were looking for four. They basically understood in the long run that we were trying to be fair.

“There’s no question the Rose Bowl is a big deal. Definitely a big deal.”

There have been other ticket troubles in recent years.

In 1994, a UCLA booster and ticket broker named Angelo M. Mazzone III was involved in an incident that left 1,000 Wisconsin fans stranded without tickets. Mazzone also was accused by Bruin players of buying complimentary tickets from them for up to three times their face value in 1978.

Last year, Washington State gave first crack at buying tickets to a group of 5,000 high-level athletic donors. Ticket sales were sluggish at the outset, forcing other Cougar fans to seek tickets elsewhere. Large pockets of the Rose Bowl were empty on game day. Nearing the kickoff, tickets were trading hands for half the $125 face value.

Washington State was stuck with most of the $750,000 bill for the unsold tickets.

Kathy Schloessman, president of the L.A. Sports and Entertainment Commission, acknowledged that the Washington State situation was a problem. “This year,” she said, “the Rose Bowl has turned out to be a hot-ticket item. With the BCS controversy, more people are going to watch it than just USC and Michigan alums. It’s a good situation. Everybody is really happy.”

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Times staff writer David Wharton contributed to this report.