Council to Explore Rose Bowl Revenue Opportunities As Forecast Predicts Snowballing Losses

The Pasadena City Council will continue discussions on Monday on the Rose Bowl Operating Company’s five-year plan to explore and implement additional revenue-generating measures that would raise needed funds to keep “America’s Stadium” – which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year – afloat into the next century.

Taking off from a presentation made to the City Council in June, new RBOC CEO and General Manager Jens Weiden said they are looking forward to the dialogue Monday and in the months ahead.

“We share in Council’s desire to find robust, dependable and ongoing funding sources for the City’s assets in the Central Arroyo, and specifically for America’s Stadium,” Weiden said in a letter to the City Council. “Like you, we are proud stewards of the Stadium and Brookside Golf Course and we must all ensure that these assets remain a point of pride for the City. That will require continued investment in existing infrastructure as well as the potential for new projects that fit within the Central Arroyo.”

Weiden took over as CEO and General Manager of the RBOC on July 1. Before that, he was chief revenue officer of the city-owned Rose Bowl since 2013.

Weiden will face the City Council Monday and further detail the RBOC’s Five-Year Strategic Initiatives which his predecessor, Darryl Dunn, submitted in June.

The five-year plan includes eight potentially significant revenue-generating opportunities that the RBOC intends to pursue should the City Council gives its approval.

The plan, the RBOC explained, is meant to ensure that the Rose Bowl and Brookside Park continue to have a balanced annual operating budget in the years to come.

Among the opportunities in the RBOC plan is establishing a Family Golf Center at Brookside Park, a campus marque/sponsorship program where commercial sponsors could associate their name with the Rose Bowl, sponsored signage on the 210 Freeway, and a plan to raise the Transient Occupancy Tax for the stadium.

An agenda report prepared by the RBOC for the City Council showed the items in the five-year plan were agreed on by the RBOC and its consultant, CAA ICON Strategic Advisory, which the RBOC engaged in order to evaluate revenue-generating opportunities in the Rose Bowl campus.

Over a hundred possible endeavors were identified – including new uses such as a hotel in the Arroyo Seco and an ice-skating rink on the property – but the discussions led to the eight projects that RBOC staff identified as most feasible.

The RBOC estimates that it will need to spend a minimum of $54 million over the next six years in capital investments. In the agenda report, the RBOC said it has already allocated $8.1 million in the fiscal year 2023 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget, leaving $46 million to be funded.

The estimates showed that between 2024 and 2028, the Rose Bowl will need to spend $9.2 million yearly on capital improvement projects, and much of the funding is expected to come from the Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation and third-party opportunities such as concessionaires, rights holders, and federal, state and county grants, among others.

These sources, the RBOC said, will not be enough to fund the entire $46 million requirement, and additional funding opportunities should continue to be explored.