Rose Bowl Operating Company Board Thanks Retiring Stadium GM For Turnaround: “We’re Not in the Danger Zone Anymore”

Meeting shortly after Rose Bowl CEO and General Manager Darryl Dunn announced his retirement Thursday following almost three decades at the stadium, Rose Bowl Operating Company Board Members thanked Dunn and said he had turned the Bowl around in the face of financial ravages caused by the pandemic.

“We are so far away from where we were a year ago, and there were times when I didn’t think we could get here,” RBOC Board President  Steve Haderlein said during the board meeting.

“Thank you for such a great job,” RBOC board member Doug Kranwinkle told Dunn, amidst numerous thanks and accolades from fellow board members. 

“You have had so many challenges, especially in the last two years,” Kranwinkle told Dunn, “and you have brought us back. You turned it around. We’re not in the danger zone anymore.” 

Dunn thanked the board and said he was leaving the RBOC in “amazingly good hands.”

Haderlein said that the RBOC would form an ad hoc selection committee to meet next week to find a successor “quickly.”

The RBOC is responsible for the governance and stewardship of the Rose Bowl Stadium and Brookside golf courses.

The last two years, and even before, have not been easy for the Rose Bowl.

Against the backdrop of a two-year pandemic that saw revenues plummet, the successful emergence of SoFi stadium onto the local sports venue scene, and a college football playoff controversy, the RBOC Board points to solid new ground as revenues rose in 2021 and at least one major existing contract has been extended, along with plans for two more stadium concerts in July, and the setting aside of funds for stadium upgrades and maintenance. 

Thursday’s board meeting touched on a number of positive developments.

Moving through a busy agenda, the RBOC also voted unanimously to expand its 2022 concert schedule with an agreement with KAMP Global Inc. to produce two K-Pop music concerts in June. The concert would join the currently scheduled Cruel World and Just Like Heaven festivals in May, along with the two-night This Ain’t No Picnic music festival in August, as well as the 2022 UCLA football season. 

The new concerts in May are estimated to bring in $600,000 in total and would be the 21st and 22nd “displacement events” for the year. The Arroyo Seco Ordinance permits up to 15 displacement events before the City Council would need to vote to permit more than 15 such events.

The board also  approved the five-year extension of the existing contract with RG Canning for the Rose Bowl Flea Market, which recently began operating again, and which the Rose Bowl’s Jens Welden called the “best flea market in the US.”

According to a staff report, “R.G. Canning currently generates approximately $1M annually for the Rose Bowl Stadium in a non-pandemic scenario.” 

The RBOC is currently forecasting a $1.170 million net income in FY23 and these changes to the agreement should help the RBOC achieve that budget, said the report.

The initial bidding process on a new cantilever fence test project for the Brookside Golf Course was also approved, which, according to a staff report, is estimated to cost more than $400,000. The project would consist of 450 lineal feet of a 15-foot-tall fence with a 20-foot overhang cantilever netting, at the intersection of West Drive and Salvia Canyon Road, according to the report.

In addition to the new contracts, and as a reflection of the stadium’s renewed financial strength, the board appropriated $11,190,000 in fiscal year 2023 from the Rose Bowl Stadium Capital Improvement Fund set aside to fund the Rose Bowl Stadium Major Capital Improvement Projects; an appropriation of $1,365,000 in fiscal year 2023 from the Rose Bowl Stadium Capital Maintenance Fund set aside to fund Rose Bowl preventative maintenance; along with an appropriation of $316,000 in fiscal year 2023 from Rose Bowl Stadium Capital Maintenance Fund set aside to fund the Brookside Golf Course and Clubhouse preventative maintenance.

Finally, an optimistic RBOC draft budget report projected a 2022 net cash flow of nearly $8.6 million and an ending cash balance of just over $12.2  million.

As the meeting adjourned, an obviously pleased Haderlein told the board, “With the extensions of the existing contracts, the new concerts, and the capital improvement funding, this has been a very welcome change.”