2009 Tournament of Roses highlights

Journalist Robert Niles writes that columnists and reporters musing on a national college football championship game that would replace the Rose Bowl should also consider that it might mean the end of the Rose Parade.

How many people would support a college football playoff if it meant, for example, no longer having a Rose Parade on New Year's Day?

Because that's exactly what a playoff system would do. It would endanger the survival of the Rose Parade, as well as a long list of other community traditions that collectively, mean hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact to the communities which host them....

I took a look at the most recent available IRS Form 990 for the Tournament of Roses...[it's] financially healthy as an organization that puts on a football game and a parade (as well as funding some local charities and causes). Take away the football game, though, and the balance sheet changes.

Niles, who writes for the Online Journalism Review at USC, also offers some ideas for improving the BCS game, and thus reducing the call for a playoff.