The Pasadena NFL/Rose Bowl Merry-Go-Round Times have changed; the Rose Bowl is unique Pasadena has squabbled about Rose Bowl use since the 1980s. I. The Big Bowls/why did postseason football begin in Pasadena rather than in Flor- ida, much closer to where football began? The Rose Bowl game came first and was always different. It started in 1902 as part of the Tournament of Roses celebration. It was the "Tournament East-West football game”; bowl games didn’t exist in 1902. Michigan crushed Stanford 49-0. Stanford asked to stop the slaughter with 8 minutes remaining, and Michigan agreed. Michigan’s famous ‘point-a-minute’ team were unbeaten and unscored upon during their eleven games. They scored 550 points, opponents 0. The bowl idea came from the Yale Bowl, built in 1914. Harvard built the world’s first all con- crete and steel stadium in 1903 in a horseshoe shape. The Yale Bowl was widely admired; later stadiums often copied its shape. The original Pasadena stadium, built in 1922, had a horseshoe shape. Its open south end was closed in 1929, and its seating capacity rose from 57,000 to 76,000. East Coast college football was very popular 100 years ago. Harvard stadium (1903) originally seated 57,000 and the Yale Bowl 70,000. Wealthy Northerners often took Florida winter va- cations in those days, but Florida was thinly settled and tourists came for the beaches. Mil- lionaire Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway and luxury hotels in St. Augustine and Palm Beach in the 1890s, but Miami wasn’t even incorporated until 1896. Key West was the largest and wealthiest city in Florida until 1900, when it was passed by Jacksonville. Con- sider the 1900 populations: 1900 census data Miami 1,681 Pasadena 9,117 Key West 17,114 Los Angeles 102,509 Jacksonville 28,429 San Francisco 342,782 There was a precedent for California sports travel. The legendary undefeated 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings baseball team played 6 games in San Francisco and Sacramento in September and October 1869, only a few months after the government subsidized transcontinental rail- road was completed. No railroad reached LA until 1876. Cincinnati traveled to Memphis and New Orleans in 1870, but never to Florida. No railroad reached Key West until 1912. Pasa- dena had rail access and a well-known warm climate winter festival. The 1900 Rose Parade was filmed for East Coast audiences. The Tournament of Roses (TOR) added a football game in their 12th year, 1902. Tournament Park seating was inadequate, fans climbed over the fence, there were fights and a stampede onto the field, but the festival made money overall and thought that the football game was a plus. However, no West Coast team would agree to play in 1903, so the TOR substituted a polo match, which generated few fans and minimal enthusiasm The TOR moved on to chariot racing. 2 Chariot race at Tournament Park in the 1911 Tournament of Roses Photograph courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Special Collections. Roman style chariot racing came from the successful Broadway play, Ben-Hur, which opened in 1899. The play featured a spectacular live chariot race with real horses and chariots. Char- iot racing didn’t last; 1915 was its last year in Pasadena. Football returned in 1916. Washington State beat favored Brown on a cold, drizzly New Year’s Day and the TOR lost money. Brown had an African-American star player, Fritz Pol- lard, the first African-American to play in the Rose Bowl. He later played for the Akron Pros, in the American Professional Football Association or APFA. Pollard and famous African- American singer and political activist Paul Robeson played together for Akron in 1921. Robe- son had been an All-American football player (tackle and end) at Rutgers, where he played against Pollard. The 1917 football game turned a profit and football was here to stay. There was one post- season bowl game in 1930, eight by 1950, and 33 last year. The Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game had a national reputation by 1920. By 1937 there were five major bowl games, The Cotton, Orange, Rose, Sugar and Sun Bowls. Cities wanted to lure tourists and investors even more during the depression years. Miami businessmen discussed something similar to the Rose Festival in the 1920s. They held a Festival of Palms Bowl in 1933 and 34, then an Or- ange Bowl starting in 1935 and an Orange Bowl parade from 1940-2002. Many bowl games fizzled, such as the Dust Bowl and the Cereal Bowl. Internet information on those defunct bowl games and sports history in general is confused and contradictory. It’s hard to find infor- mation on the Dust Bowl game, played January 3, 1936 in Tulsa, OK but they did celebrate a Dust Bowl. California had post season fizzles. Two East West Christmas classic games were played in San Diego’s Balboa stadium in 1922 and 1923. You probably know that UCLA played at the Coliseum for many years, but do you know about the Los Angeles Christmas Bowl? This one time game was held December 25, 1924 at the Coliseum. USC, which joined the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) in 1922, defeated the University of Missouri 20-7. The 1924 Tro- 3 jans were coached by Elmer Henderson, the winningest USC coach ever. Some authorities call it the Los Angeles Christmas Festival rather than Christmas Bowl. There is talk of reviv- ing it - you can Google LA Christmas Bowl. UCLA joined the PCC in 1929 and played USC at the Coliseum for the first time. The Tro- jans crushed them 76-0. Aerial view of 1930 Rose Bowl game. Notice the Goodyear blimp, the flood channel without concrete, the many cars parked south of the stadium and the absence of cars on the Golf course. Photograph courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Special Collections. I listened to the radio on New Year’s Day in the 1940s and 1950s in Texas, from the Orange Bowl before lunch to the Rose Bowl game after dark. Professional Football was small time then. There was a well-known pre season game (The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game) when a college All-Star team played the NFL champions. The teams were closely matched in the beginning. The college All-Stars shut out the NFL champs by identical 16-0 scores in 1946 and 47, but won no games after 1963. The game ended in 1976; the college All-Stars would be run off the field today and might be seriously injured. The March of Technology: The 1927 Rose Bowl game was the first nationwide football game broadcast. Television and luxury boxes came in after World War II. The first Rose Bowl telecast was in 1947 (a few East Coast games were telecast before World War II). Sports Illustrated came in 1954, after two magazines with the same name went broke before World War II. It set the tone for a media-dominated future. Instant replay was introduced in 1963, giving TV spectators an ad- vantage. ABC began a game of the week telecast in 1966 and took a chance on Monday night football in 1970. That TV gamble paid off. We got new camera angles, the Dallas Cowboy cheer- leaders close up, and new commentators like the controversial Howard Cosell. ESPN (Enter- tainment and Sports programming Network) began in 1979, another big step. Fans wanted to follow their favorite teams and players through the week. TV profits soared. Forty years ago, NBC and CBS paid about $340 million (inflation adjusted) per year to broadcast NFL games. Now the same rights go for over $4 billion, a dozen times as much as a generation ago. Television revenue is about half of all NFL revenue today. 4 The Houston Astrodome, built in 1965, opened a new world - it was the first domed stadium and had the first luxury boxes. Television and luxury boxes crushed many of the city owned stadiums. The original Orange Bowl stadium prospered with the Orange Bowl game, the University of Mi- ami and the professional Miami Dolphins. However, the Dolphins moved out to a new private sta- dium with luxury boxes in 1987. The Orange Bowl game left in 1996 and the Miami Hurricanes in 2007. The stadium came down in 2008. Today Marlins Stadium, 80% subsidized by Miami taxpayers, stands on that same site. The original Sugar Bowl stadium was demolished for the same reason – no luxury boxes. The original Cotton Bowl stadium limps along with a few college games and no pro games. Dallas has announced a renovation program that will include premium seating. Nearby Cowboys Stadium is the richest of the rich and pays no property taxes. The Cow- boys have 320 luxury suites, 15,000 club seats and 66,000 seats that require personal seat licenses to buy season tickets. II. Why is the Pro football hall of fame in Canton, Ohio? Pro football began in small industrial towns of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Local athletic clubs and some businesses paid small amounts of money to men who played on Sunday afternoons. This was a different crowd than the elite college football players- ethnic, Catholic and working class. However, they used elite players on occasion. Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Athletic Association paid William ‘Pudge’ Heffelfinger $500 to play as a ringer against its rival Pittsburgh Athletic Club in November, 1892. Heffelfinger had been a Yale All-American and now played some games for the Chicago Athletic Association team.