Rose Bowl Game - History - Tournament Park and Rose Bowl Stadium

Tournament Park and Rose Bowl Stadium

Before the Rose Bowl was built for the January 1, 1923, match, games were played in Pasadena's Tournament Park, approximately three miles southeast of the current Rose Bowl stadium near the campus of Caltech. Tournament Park was determined to be unsuitable for the larger and larger crowds gathering to watch the game and a new, permanent home for the game was commissioned.

The Rose Bowl stadium, designed after the Yale Bowl in New Haven, then hosted the first "Rose Bowl" game in 1923. The name of the stadium was alternatively "Tournament of Roses Stadium" or "Tournament of Roses Bowl", until the name "Rose Bowl" was settled on before the 1923 Rose Bowl game.

The stadium seating has been reconfigured several times since its original construction in 1922. For many years, the Rose Bowl stadium had the largest football stadium capacity in the United States, eventually being surpassed by Michigan Stadium in 1998. The maximum stated seating capacity was 104,594 from 1972 to 1997. Capacity was lowered following the 1998 Rose Bowl. The 2006 Rose Bowl game, which was also the BCS championship game, had a crowd of 93,986; and a crowd of 94,118 saw the 2011 Rose Bowl game between TCU and Wisconsin. As of 2012, the Rose Bowl is number seven on the List of American football stadiums by capacity with a current official seating capacity of 92,542 and is still the largest stadium that hosts post-season bowl games. The Rose Bowl is also the only BCS bowl game that is held in a non-NFL stadium.

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