Wednesday, May 30, 2001
Rohlfing The Jeep Seattle Bowl would be moved from Jan. 2 to Dec. 27 if the latest proposal by Aloha Sports Inc. executive director Fritz Rohlfing is approved.
wants to switch
Seattle Bowl date
He wants to avoid a
possible conflict with the
Jan. 2 Orange Bowl
By Paul Arnett
Star-BulletinRohlfing told the Star-Bulletin yesterday that he will meet with Pac-10 officials soon to give an update of the two proposed games formerly known as the Aloha and Oahu bowls. He said things are moving along as planned since receiving NCAA certification a month ago.
"We're still in negotiations with ABC and Jeep, but I'm hopeful that we'll have something in place soon involving both games," Rohlfing said.
"We've moved the Jeep Seattle Bowl to Dec. 27 because of a potential conflict with the Orange Bowl.
"We want these games to be played in prime time. Right now, we're still planning on having the Jeep San Francisco Bowl on Dec. 30. Let's just say we're still negotiating with ABC to televise this game. No deals have been signed."
In late March, Rohlfing announced he was not only thinking of shipping out the three-year-old Oahu Bowl to the mainland, but the Aloha Bowl as well. They were part of a Christmas Day doubleheader.
Declining attendance and lack of state support were the main reasons cited by Rohlfing for making the difficult decision. Network officials are reportedly upset at not being consulted about the possible move until the certification meetings in Florida in late April.
ABC doesn't want to give up the coveted Christmas Day time slot, something Rohlfing believes is imperative for the games to survive. Two weeks ago, ESPN-TV, whose parent company is ABC, bought the Las Vegas Bowl.
There have been some discussions of moving that game to Christmas Day.
"I've heard that is a possibility," Rohlfing said. "All I can say is Las Vegas will learn what we did: It's tough to sell tickets on Christmas.
"It will always be a challenge, I don't care who's in the game. We don't want to play on Christmas because it would be a tough sell in San Francisco as it was in Honolulu."
The Jeep San Francisco Bowl continues to play catchup, although Rohlfing is confident a deal will be done. The Seattle game is pretty much in place.
Officials for that bowl even attended the certification meetings. Rohlfing said moving the game to December shouldn't pose any scheduling problems. If either game falls out of favor with the respective West Coast cities, then one or both could be played at Aloha Stadium on Christmas.
But at this point, that seems unlikely. Despite competing with the Silicon Valley Football Classic for Bay Area dollars, Rohlfing is confident his game will survive.
For one, the recent slow-down of the computer industry puts the Silicon Valley game on slippery footing. It's believed the second annual bowl doesn't have a major sponsor at this time. Rohlfing also has ties to the Pac- 10 -- he has the fourth and fifth choices from the major conference -- and is hopeful Jeep and ABC will be on board as well.
"We're getting closer to making those deals," Rohlfing said. "We're also working on other sponsorships, so things are looking better right now."