Rose Bowl Game

The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, traditionally played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2.

Nicknamed "The Granddaddy of Them All" by broadcaster Keith Jackson, it was the first postseason football game ever established. The Rose Bowl Game was first played in 1902 as the Tournament East–West football game, and has been played annually since 1916. Since 1945, it has been the highest attended college football bowl game. The game is a part of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association's "America's New Year Celebration", which also includes the historic Rose Parade. Winners of the game receive the Leishman Trophy, named for former Tournament of Roses presidents, William L. Leishman and Lathrop K. Leishman who played an important part in the history of this game.

Starting in 1917, the Rose Bowl Game selected a team from the predecessor of the Pac-12 Conference each year along with a team from the eastern half of the country. In 1947, the Rose Bowl Game began its traditional matchup of the conference champions from the Big Ten Conference and Pac-12 Conference, which continued to 2023, with some exceptions.

In 1998, the Rose Bowl Game joined with several other bowls to create the Bowl Championship Series to produce an undisputed national champion in college football. This marked the first time the Rose Bowl agreed to release the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion to play in a national championship game if they were ranked #1 or #2. The Rose Bowl Game served as the national championship game in 2002 and 2006. The Rose Bowl stadium and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association hosted the BCS National Championship Game in 2010 and 2014, in addition to the regular Rose Bowl Game.

In 2014, the Rose Bowl, along with the other "New Year's Six" bowls, became a part of the College Football Playoff. As part of the four team playoff from 2014 to 2023, the Rose Bowl served as a semifinal game in 2015, 2018, and 2021. When not serving as a semifinal, the Rose Bowl featured the best available teams from the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences.

With the expansion of the College Football Playoff to twelve teams in the 2024–25 season, the Rose Bowl will serve as either a quarterfinal or semifinal each year. It served as a quarterfinal in 2025 and will do so again in 2026. When serving as a quarterfinal, the Rose Bowl will host the Big Ten champion, if seeded in the top four. When serving as a semifinal, the game will be played one week after New Year's Day, and, if the Big Ten champion is one of the top two seeds, the team will be assigned to the Rose Bowl.

Originally titled the "Tournament East–West football game", the first Rose Bowl was played on January 1, 1902, starting the tradition of New Year's Day bowl games. The football game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of the Rose Parade. The inaugural game featured Fielding H. Yost's dominating 1901 Michigan team, representing the East, which crushed a previously 3–1–2 team from Stanford University, representing the West, by a score of 49–0 after Stanford quit in the third quarter. Michigan finished the season 11–0 and was crowned the national champion. Yost had been Stanford's coach the previous year. The game was so lopsided that for the next thirteen years, the Tournament of Roses officials ran chariot races, ostrich races, and other various events instead of football. But, on New Year's Day 1916, football returned to stay as the State College of Washington (now Washington State University) defeated Brown University in the first of what was thereafter an annual tradition.

Before the Rose Bowl was built, games were played in Pasadena's Tournament Park, approximately three miles (5 km) southeast of the current Rose Bowl stadium, near the campus of Caltech. Tournament Park was found to be unsuitable for the increasingly large crowds gathering to watch the game and a new, permanent home for the game was commissioned.