Rose Bowl, formally Pasadena Tournament of Roses, oldest American postseason college gridiron football contest, held annually in Pasadena, California. Each Rose Bowl game is preceded by a Tournament of Roses Parade, or Rose Parade, which is one of the world’s most elaborate and famous annual parades. In 2014 the Rose Bowl began participating in the College Football Playoff system, serving as a host of the Football Bowl Subdivsion (college football’s top division) championship semifinals in a rotation along with the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. The Rose Bowl is played on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.

Rose Bowl Dwayne Jarrett (white jersey) of the University of Southern California reaching for the football in USC's Rose Bowl victory over the University of Michigan, 2007. Matt Sayles/AP Images

Circus float in a Tournament of Roses Parade Courtesy of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses

Britannica Quiz Football the Way Americans Play It Quiz What is the oldest postseason college football bowl game in the United States?

The first festival, originally called the Battle of Flowers, was held on January 1, 1890, under the auspices of the Valley Hunt Club and consisted of local citizens decorating their carriages and buggies with flowers and driving over a prearranged route; the parade was followed by amateur athletic events. From 1897 the tournament was conducted by a newly established Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association. The morning parade now consists of about 60 floats of intricate design, elaborately decorated with flowers and illustrating some aspect of the parade’s theme of the year. Interspersed among the floats are marching bands and costumed horses and riders, and included in the 5.5-mile- (8.9-km-) long procession are a grand marshal and a Rose queen.

In 1902 the first football game was held (between the University of Michigan and Stanford University) in Tournament Park, but chariot races and other contests were thereafter substituted, and football was not introduced as the annual contest until 1916. The Rose Bowl stadium opened in 1922, in time for the 1923 game. (Because of restrictions on crowds on the West Coast during World War II, the 1942 game was relocated to Durham, North Carolina.) Originally, the championship team of the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (now the Pacific-12) simply invited a winning team from anywhere in the eastern United States to be its opponent. Beginning in 1947, however, the Rose Bowl brought together teams from the Big Ten (in the Midwest) and Pacific-12 conferences and their forerunners; with the advent of the College Football Playoff system, the bowl has maintained its tie-in with these two conferences, generally matching their champions unless the team or the bowl is participating in the national championship semifinals.

A list of Rose Bowl results is provided in the table.

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