Rose Bowl Party Tab: $2M

The Big Ten conference has given Illinois $2.1 million to spend on its nine-day, 600-head Rose Bowl jaunt—a sign of the times, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in an era of increasingly lavish college football bowls. The Missouri Tigers program, meanwhile, will have to make do with a budget of only $1.3 million for the 800 people it has joining the team's Cotton Bowl trip to Dallas. Advantage: Illini.

Complicating things is the merciless turnaround time: officials at both schools have had just three weeks to prepare. One party planner for the Illinois athletic department says of their trip to Southern California, "luckily, we're all in the same hotel. We'll all eat together, meet in the mornings and go to practice. I tried not to leave big breaks to lose people. It's like herding cattle.'' (More NCAA stories.)