Chalk up another BCS win and tourism boost for OC. When Alabama met Texas at the Rose Bowl in January 2010 for the national collegiate football championship, Bowl Championship Series officials picked a consortium of OC hotels over L.A. hotels to be the official hosts. And Newport Beach tourism chief Gary Sherwin says that despite a bid by downtown L.A., OC has prevailed again: Teams, band members, alums and the media will take 6,000 rooms here when the big game returns to Pasadena in January 2014. The Newport Beach Marriott will again serve as the weeklong media center; other participants are the Hyatt Regency Irvine, Westin South Coast Plaza, Island Hotel, Fairmont Newport Beach, Radisson Newport Beach and Balboa Bay Club. Sherwin says OC received “lights out” reviews from the 2010 visitors. He also said that with L.A. hotels hosting the annual Rose Bowl game, it’s difficult for them to handle all of the logistics for the championship game just a week later …
Title sponsor for the 2014 BCS championship game is Irvine-based Vizio …
Come Sunday mornings, an Anaheim fun spot known for dance acts and libations hosts hymns and sermons: Saddleback Church has located its ninth campus at the Battle of the Dance Theater on Harbor Boulevard. The dinner theater is a departure from the gymnasium feel of Saddleback’s main Lake Forest campus or the high schools and middle schools that comprise most of the church’s rapidly expanding Southern California network. Yet another example of Pastor Rick Warren’s innovative approach to worship …
Did Saddleback consider buying Crystal Cathedral in nearby Garden Grove? No, the Insider is told …
Pastor Rick’s wife Kay was in Washington, D.C., last week with President Obama, musicians Bono and Alicia Keys, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and other VIPs to mark World AIDS Day …
Although Chapman U lost the Crystal Cathedral competition, Prez Jim Doti says the widespread coverage of the bankruptcy auction was worth an estimated $2.5 million in free publicity for Chapman. Some university supporters tell the Insider they’re relieved by the outcome because they think Chapman’s final $59 million offer was too much. The cathedral board chose the Diocese of Orange’s $57.5 million bid …
Bruin alum Quang Pham emailed, “UCLA’s football program is in the toilet, but we have the best amateur in the golfing world.” He attached last week’s New York Times profile of sophomore sensation Patrick Cantlay, a Servite High grad …
The CEOs of three of OC’s leading medical device companies—Michael Mussallem of Edwards Lifesciences, Jim Mazzo of Abbott Medical Optics and Robert Grant of Bausch & Lomb Surgical—all told the Forum for Corporate Directors that they don’t think federal healthcare reform will be repealed. But they also agreed “fixes” to the law would be needed. What fixes? “The device tax, for one,” Grant quipped. (More on Cover Story – HERE)
