Arizona lands new BCS title game
By Jerry Brown, Tribune
The Fiesta Bowl will get the first official Bowl Championship Series title game in January of 2007 under the new expanded format. The state of Arizona gets extra exposure and increased tax dollars.
And the Arizona Cardinals get a little piece of the action headed toward their new stadium in Glendale.
Everyone is happy — finally.
Hours after Gov. Janet Napolitano signed legislation requiring the stadium authority to grant use of the new facility for college football, and a day after the Fiesta Bowl and the Cardinals settled their disputes over stadium and suite issues, the BCS awarded the 2007 title game — which will be played a week after the Fiesta and the other three current BCS bowl games — to Glendale.
The bill also turns about $1.75 million in sales tax revenue from ticket sales and other transactions from the BCS games over to the Fiesta Bowl.
Fiesta Bowl executive director John Junker and his staff have been working quickly to ensure a deal was in place to keep the game from heading elsewhere. As many as a dozen current bowl sites and other cities had submitted big-dollar proposals to the BCS in hopes of stealing the game away from Arizona.
"It was a struggle, but we finally got to the end zone and scored a touchdown for Arizona," Junker said. "We owe the governor and the state legislature a big thank you for stepping up. We also thank the Cardinals and (vice president and general counsel) Michael Bidwill for working with us.’’
That means the Valley will play host to three college bowl games in less than two weeks — the Insight Bowl at Bank One Ballpark in late December of 2006, the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day of 2007 and the BCS title game on Jan. 8, 2007.
Junker said the three bowl games should combine to pump about $220 million into the Valley’s economy — compared to the $153.7 million generated when Miami and Ohio State battled into double overtime when the Fiesta Bowl hosted the 2003 BCS "title game."
BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg was happy the first BCS title game was staying in Arizona and in the current rotation of four BCS bowls, but needed the loose ends tied up.
"I thought it was very important we get the issues relative to the new stadium resolved,’’ Weiberg said. "We very much like Phoenix, but we had questions that would have to be answered about the financial commitments the Fiesta Bowl had made to us.’’
Weiberg said the naming rights to the new game will be sold by Fox Sports — which owns the broadcast rights — but their intent would likely be to work with the existing sponsors of the Rose (AT&T), Sugar (Nokia), Orange (Federal Express) and Fiesta (Tostitos) to see if they wish to sponsor the additional game in their host cities.
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