PASADENA, Calif. — The city of Pasadena is preparing to welcome people back to the Rose Bowl more than a year after the pandemic shut its gates.
Empty seats have resulted in significant financial loss for the city as the stadium approaches its 100th anniversary.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo said the city had hoped to make just under $60 million in revenue before the pandemic hit.
“We ended up with a loss of about $12 million net,” Gordo said.
Gordo was on the Rose Bowl Stadium of Directors for 10 years before becoming mayor. He said the city would have used the lost money to make repairs and improvements.
The pavilion and box seats were renovated nearly 10 years ago, but more work is still to be done.
“Improvements for seats, improvements in the concourse, bathrooms in the concourse, about $50 million on our wish list that we’d like to see,” Gordo said.
Improvements will help with competition from new stadiums like SoFi in Inglewood. Gordo acknowledges the bowl will have to fight with other venues to book events, but he believes history is on its side.
“The granddaddy of them all. America’s stadium. It’s just a different experience,” Gordo said. “You can’t replicate it. You can’t replace it. Thirty years from now, people will say, ‘What was the name of that stadium over in Inglewood?’ But they’ll always remember the Rose Bowl.”
Nostalgia is one of many reasons he believes people will return, he said. A two-day music festival has already been announced along with the 95th America Fest 4th of July show. Football games will return as well.
The year 2022 will mark the 100th anniversary of the bowl, and Gordo said celebrations are already in the works, along with plans to keep the bowl thriving.
“We have a responsibility to ensure that it continues for another 100 years, and we’re going to do that,” Gordo said.
The Rose Bowl, which opened in October 1922, is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and California Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
The Rose Bowl event calendar can be found on the stadium website.