Thorny Issue: Finding Tickets to Rose Bowl : College football: Rules changed after many Wisconsin fans were shut out. Satisfying demand is still a challenge.

Garry Marshall is talking fast, but this has nothing to do with his latest Hollywood deal.

The writer-producer-director with stellar credits--”Happy Days” and “Pretty Woman”--is excited about an event that has one segment of Hollywood abuzz.

The Rose Bowl.

Marshall is but one of Northwestern’s well-known graduates who is wild about the Wildcats’ first bowl game in 47 years.

At a recent birthday party for Marshall’s sister, actress-director Penny, he talked to some Northwestern alumni about the possibilities.

“I told Warren [Beatty] if they go, we’ll get a group together and go to the game,” Marshall said.

From Hollywood to Evanston, Ill., purple is the color of choice as the third-ranked Wildcats (10-1) prepare to play Pacific 10 Conference champion USC in Pasadena on Jan. 1.

Last week, the crush of telephone calls to Northwestern overloaded the university’s voice mail system. It broke down twice.

The Northwestern Alumni Assn. sold out its official tour package in three days.

“We had two fax machines melt down on us,” said Ed Paquette, the association’s executive director.

So, foremost on the minds of Rose Bowl and school officials is . . . Wisconsin.

With the potential for a Rose Bowl ticket debacle similar to the one that led to lawsuits, embarrassment and federal policy changes two years ago, officials are warning Northwestern fans to be wary of unscrupulous ticket brokers.

Although leading Chicago-area brokers say the demand is not as intense as it was when Badger fans from Madison, Milwaukee and Manitowoc clamored to get to Pasadena, the recipe for disaster is set.

Like Wisconsin, Northwestern has not known football success in some time. And the Wildcats’ opponent is a Los Angeles school whose fans are not over-the-edge excited about the team’s regular-season performance.

USC (8-2-1) is going to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1990, but the atmosphere is not altogether joyous, since the Trojans lost again to Notre Dame and UCLA.

Deja vu? In 1994, exuberant Wisconsin met ho-hum UCLA on the Bruins’ home turf. The Badgers came to Southern California for the first time in 31 years, and many of their faithful spent thousands of dollars on tour packages they assumed included game tickets.

With the demand so great, the brokers could not come through at the prices promised. Some fans had to spend 10 times face value to get seats. And instead of going to yet another game in Pasadena, many Bruin fans were happy to unload their tickets at such inflated prices.

The situation was exacerbated by the disclosure that one big-time UCLA booster, Angelo Mazzone, had bought 4,000 tickets from the Bruins’ generous allotment. Mazzone, a ticket broker, ran those tickets into a $400,000 profit.

Upon returning home, riled Badger backers swamped the Wisconsin state attorney general’s office with complaints. The state launched an investigation, and UCLA was named in a class-action suit that eventually was dismissed.

The consumer-protection divisions of the L.A. County district attorney’s office and the California attorney general’s office also investigated local brokers, and two firms agreed to pay more than $36,000 in fines.

Perhaps most important, Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena issued a revised policy covering tour operators for bowl games. In essence, operators cannot sell packages without guaranteeing tickets to games. Legitimate operators are registered with the Department of Transportation this year.

“It was a black eye for the tournament,” said Jack French, executive director of the Tournament of Roses.

French does not anticipate similar problems because of the attention paid the Wisconsin affair. Last year’s Oregon-Penn State game produced few problems with brokers. French said it will be some time before the public forgets what happened to the Badgers and lets down its guard again.

But after a 47-year drought, Northwestern fans seemed to be ripe for another rip-off.

“We were kind of expecting the worst,” said Kenneth Gamble of Gold Coast tickets in Chicago. “Everybody had in the back of their minds Wisconsin.”

But he and other ticket brokers said the interest simply is not there, despite the campus reaction. One reason, they say, is that Northwestern fans are not used to paying exorbitant prices for tickets.

“The Northwestern ticket probably is the easiest ticket to get in the country,” said Eric Soderholm, owner of Chicago’s Front Row Tickets and a former major leaguer with the White Sox. “You can’t get anybody to pay over face value.”

Soderholm is not surprised by the requests on campus to buy tickets for $75, the face value, but he has received only a handful of orders at $300 a ducat.

Northwestern is a small private school, so not many students will travel west to attend the game. But it has 150,000 alumni nationwide, many in the Southland. Their interest will determine the prices, brokers said.

No one will say it publicly, but many seem to think Northwestern’s elite alumni--some of the country’s leaders of Fortune 500 companies--are too savvy to be victims of fraudulent ticket practices.

“The majority of the people want to know how we are assured of getting a ticket to the game,” said Ted Albrecht, a former Chicago Bear offensive tackle who owns a tour company in Arlington Heights, Ill.

The other factor is USC fans. Interest so far has been lukewarm, but officials are not expecting a UCLA-type desertion. Bob Elliott, a Trojan booster from Newport Beach, said he was besieged with ticket requests the moment USC clinched the bowl berth.

Elliott acknowledged that many Trojan fans were disappointed when Ohio State lost to Michigan, sending Northwestern to Pasadena.

“But it will be very interesting to see how Northwestern plays,” he said. “In a way, Northwestern hasn’t gotten any respect.”

Since the Wisconsin fiasco, the ticket distribution has been changed. The Big Ten Conference was given about 3,000 more tickets from the 98,245 available, although those will not be nearly enough to satisfy the Northwestern demand, officials said.

USC received 41,666 tickets, Northwestern 21,904. Other Pac-10 schools received a total of 5,000, other Big Ten schools got 2,000.

Also, for the first time, a national public sale will be held Monday starting at 10 a.m. and continuing until the 1,000 available seats are gone. The tickets can be bought by telephone only through Ticketmaster at (213) 480-3232 with a limit of two tickets per call. Tickets can be paid for only with valid credit cards.

Five hundred more are being sold through the Tournament of Roses as part of its official tour package. And Pasadena residents are being offered 500 at a public sale Saturday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium box office, starting at 10 a.m.

Those buying tickets will discover prices increased from $48 to $75 this year because Rose Bowl officials wanted to keep pace with the new bowl alliance’s hefty payouts. The alliance’s three bowls--Fiesta, Sugar and Orange--pool their money to attract the best teams for a possible national championship showdown.

The move increased the Rose Bowl payout to each league from $6.7 million to $8.1 million and boosted the money available for expenses by about $435,000 to $1.125 million.

“We thought we were quite underpriced for a major sports event, particularly one in Southern California,” Pac-10 Commissioner Thomas Hansen said.

And it is a major event, said Albrecht, also a radio announcer for Northwestern games. He disagrees with the brokers who do not see the Rose Bowl as a big-game ticket.

“I know what it’s like to play in Chicago,” he said. “It’s a great sports town. This is as big or bigger than the Bears going to the Super Bowl in 1985.”

Paquette, the alumni director, said even the school’s celebrities are enthusiastic.

“It’s truly a miracle,” said Marshall, who serves on Northwestern’s board of trustees.

Northwestern’s prestigious Hollywood connection, which includes the likes of Charlton Heston, Ann-Margret, Paula Prentiss, Shelly Long and Tony Randall, is expected to be well represented at the game.

They, like other Northwestern fans, will be there to watch a fellow thespian, theater major Darnell Autry, Northwestern’s star running back.

“I don’t know if he is a good actor, but he certainly is a good runner,” Marshall said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

1996 Rose Bowl Ticket Allocations

PACIFIC 10 CONFERENCE

Participating university 41,666

* CONFERENCE OFFICE

Game official comps 28

Game official purchases 50

Office purchase 300

Pac-10 reps comps 82

Other Pac-10 schools *5,000

* GAME MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Press purchase 2,692

Southland broadcasters 100

ABC purchase 600

Program purchase 400

Jaycees 100

Veterans 500

TOTAL 51,518

BIG TEN CONFERENCE

Participating university 21,904

Other Big Ten schools 2,000

Conference office 200

Big Ten Club 200

TOTAL 24,304

TOURNAMENT OF ROSES

* GAME MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Handicapped 154

Rose Bowl suites 590

Public sale 2,000

Script 3,900

Tournament use **15,779

TOTAL SEATS AVAILABLE: ***98,245

*Eight schools at 500; one Los Angeles school at 1,000

**Includes membership, participants, sponsors, TV, radio, guests, city and ABC.

***Total seating capacity for a Rose Bowl game is 100,368; 1,682 seats are unusable due to obstructed view; 441 spaces for working press are included.