A History of Rose Bowl Tickets (1988-Present)
This post is the third of a three-part series. Please read parts one and two before continuing.
The remainder of the 20th Century saw a range of artistic expressions ranging from the creative…
… to the clip artist.
The 2000 ticket is among my favorites both for its aesthetic appeal and because it forever memorializes one of the many UCLA players who failed to tackle Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne in the 1999 Rose Bowl. (The artist used Dayne’s likeness but removed one of the threes from his jersey number.)
Admission to the Rose Bowl comes from a ticket in the hand of the holder, while beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not sure what to think of the more recent efforts. I like the next ticket, though it is unclear what the two backs who are not getting the ball are doing.
But others are boring or, at least, unremarkable. Witness…
More recent tickets have bar codes, introduced in 2006, and anti-counterfeiting holograms. The presence of bar codes meant the turnstile lines moved faster and were also welcome since they no longer needed to tear the tickets to indicate they had been used. The result is that many more tickets remain in full, pristine condition when saved in the locations mentioned earlier.
Another point to make about the Rose Bowl tickets over the years is the increase in ticket prices. Directly comparing ticket prices is problematic since some example tickets were for premium seats, and others were not. But, if we look across the series of tickets and adjust for inflation, the 1916 bleacher seat priced at 50 cents equals $14.94 today. From the 1920s through the 1990s, tickets floated around $100 in today’s prices. Prices boomed after the turn of the century, quickly rising to $200 and, more recently, to $250 in 2023 dollars.
That ends our tour of Rose Bowl tickets’ visual history. One can only hope the Rose Bowl continues in the playoff game rotation, and they issue paper tickets as long as the game exists, but they will adapt to the changing game and world. If not, we would still use metal disks like the Romans to get into our favorite sporting events.
Addendum
The Rose Bowl and others like to promote the tale that Keith Jackson coined the “Granddaddy of Them All” description of the Rose Bowl. However, the story is a myth, as shown in my story from last October.
The phrase was directly connected to the Rose Bowl in 1949, several years before Jackson entered the radio business. Moreover, Rose Bowl tickets had “Granddaddy of Them All” printed on them for 11 straight years before Jackson first announced a Rose Bowl game.
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Great research as always. I highly recommend the read of the Keith Jackson - Grandaddy post for those that have not yet. It is a gem
The artwork for the 91st/2005 game is from the 1916 game program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Rose_Bowl