2021 Rose Bowl
The 2021 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on January 1, 2021, with kickoff at 3:00 p.m. CST at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The 107th playing of the Rose Bowl Game, it was one of two College Football Playoff semifinal games; it pitted two of the four teams selected by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee—Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team|Notre Dame] from the Atlantic Coast Conference, and 2020 [Alabama Crimson Tide football team|Alabama] from the Southeastern Conference, with its winner facing the winner of the Sugar Bowl, Ohio State Buckeyes football team|Ohio State], at the 2021 [College Football Playoff National Championship]. It was also one of the 2020–21 bowl games concluding the 2020 FBS football season.
In a move prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic in California, this was the first playing of the Rose Bowl outside of Pasadena, California, since the 1942 game played at Duke University due to fears of an attack on the west coast in retaliation for Pearl Harbor.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
The game was originally scheduled to be played at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California. In early December 2020, it was announced that the bowl would be contested behind closed doors without fans, due to California Governor Gavin Newsom's orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in California. Organizers attempted to negotiate an exemption to the health orders—which prohibit any spectators at a sporting event—in order to allow the family members of participating players to attend. However, they were denied.On December 15, the Los Angeles Times reported that "serious considerations" were being made to re-locate the game due to the state of the pandemic in California, with major surges in new cases, and ICU capacity in Southern California declared to be 0% as of December 17. On December 19, 2020, the Pasadena [Tournament of Roses Association] announced that the game would be relocated to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The only prior time the Rose Bowl was played outside of Pasadena was in 1942 during World War II; after large gatherings were prohibited on the west coast due to fears of a Japanese attack following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the game was re-located to Duke Stadium in Durham, North Carolina.
The Association stated that it was not immediately clear if the game would still be called the "Rose Bowl", as consent would also have to be obtained from the city of Pasadena, due to a master license agreement covering use of the name. A later press release from the Association referred to the game as the College Football Playoff Semifinal presented by Capital One, pending a decision on usage of the Rose Bowl name.
A formal decision was scheduled to be discussed by city officials in Pasadena on December 22. On December 30, the City of Pasadena approved use of the Rose Bowl name for the game in Arlington, reportedly after receiving $2 million from the Tournament of Roses “to assist the city with its expenses and lost revenue”.
The game was allowed to have 16,000 fans in attendance. The University of Alabama fan ticket allotment was 3,380. In comparison, the 2021 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans only would be allowed 3,000 fans in the Superdome in total.