With the Rose Bowl also being known as "The Granddaddy of Them All", is there really any need for further motivation to attend? Since the inaugural Rose Bowl Game in 1902, this game has launched countless college football legacies; having showcased 18 Heisman Trophy Winners, produced 28 national champions, featured 190 consensus All-Americans, and finally honoring 95 college football legends with inductions into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.
The Rose Bowl game has been sold out every year since 1947, with that year's contest being the first to be played under the Tournament of Roses' exclusive agreement with the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences. The 1998 Rose Bowl game was the 52nd anniversary of that agreement, making it the longest such tradition of any collegiate conference and a bowl association. Now, as part of the Bowl Championship Series, the Rose Bowl has hosted the National Championship Game between the top two teams in the nation in 2002 and 2006, and will again host the National Championship in 2010.
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a five-game series of postseason college football games, designed to match the #1 and #2 ranked teams in a national championship game, while providing four other exciting and competitive games amongst eight of the most highly regarded teams in college football that year. The five BCS bowl games are the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and the BCS National Championship Game that is rotated between BCS bowl sites each year.
