26.rosebowl/taub/mark2nd

No. 26

Rose Bowl Signs AT & T; as Corporate Sponsor

The bowl season has become a corporate wonderland, what with the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Nokia Sugar Bowl and the FedEx Orange Bowl. But the annual Rose Bowl game stood its ground in resisting a deal with a corporate sponsor.

Until this year. In June, ABC Inc., which broadcasts the Rose Bowl each New Year’s Day, signed an agreement with AT & T; to sponsor the game. One accommodation was made: Unlike other bowl games, which generally have their sponsors’ names before their own, the Rose Bowl is being billed as “The Rose Bowl, Presented by AT & T.;”

The oldest of the bowls, the Rose Bowl last year joined the college football alliance that includes the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls. Under ABC’s contract with the alliance under which the Rose Bowl gets $19 million of the alliance’s $76 million annually the network is allowed to sign sponsors. The value of the ABC-AT & T; agreement was not disclosed.

Despite the deal, a proposal presented three months later to find a naming sponsor for the Rose Bowl stadium itself was met with opposition from Pasadena community activists and elected officials, and was tabled by the Rose Bowl Operating Co.

Daniel Taub