HOPING TO SCORE; PASADENA PRIMED FOR SOCCER FINAL.

Byline: Dereck Andrade Staff Writer

The nation's first family has rearranged its travel plans to attend. A sellout crowd of nearly 90,000 is expected. And the event will be broadcast live on national television.

The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup Soccer final on Saturday at the Rose Bowl between the United States and China has all the ingredients to be a huge success both on and off the field.

For Pasadena, it's an economic windfall for hotels, restaurants and retail merchants, according to city officials, who are comparing it to the annual Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl game.

The average visitor to Pasadena spends $142.10 per day, according to PKF Consulting Inc., a Los Angeles-based firm that completed a study for Pasadena last year on the amount of tourism dollars spent in the city.

``It's always difficult for us to assess the economic benefit,'' said Eric Duyshart, Pasadena's business development manager. ``But it should be huge.''

``It's probably worth millions to the city in free publicity alone,'' said Roger Smith, chief executive officer of the Pasadena Center Operating Company, a nonprofit organization that oversees the civic auditorium, the conference and exhibition center and the convention and visitors bureau.

But while Pasadena is used to hosting high-profile sporting events such as the Super Bowl, city officials may have been caught off guard in their assessment of the public's interest and the economic impact of the Women's World Cup event, the single-largest women's sporting event in U.S. history.

``I don't think anyone realized how big this was going to be,'' said Lynne Hess, executive director of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce. ``I don't think it occurred to anybody that this was going to be such a big deal.''

But it has apparently turned out to be a huge deal.

All four of Pasadena's major hotels - the DoubleTree, Hilton, Holiday Inn and Ritz-Carlton - are sold out and have been turning away guests en masse.

``There's not much room anywhere in the city, and unfortunately, we will not be able to take care of any new guests,'' said Jim Pedone, sales and marketing director for the 383-room Pasadena Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa. ``The financial numbers are going to be significant.''

In addition to the hotels, restaurants up and down Colorado Boulevard and South Lake Avenue are bracing for the anticipated huge crowds of people who no doubt will be in a party mood, with purses and wallets full of cash and credit cards.

But the thousands of soccer fans who are expected to descend on Pasadena for the soccer final Saturday won't be seeing any of those colorful street light banners in the heart of trendy Old Pasadena advertising the event.

In a marketing gaffe, Women's World Cup event organizers applied too late for a permit to hang the banners in Old Pasadena, city officials said.

``Nothing sinister,'' said Steven Vanderpool, a spokesman for the games. ``We just didn't get our order in on time.''

But in an apparent last-minute save by Women's World Cup event organizers that would have made soccer great Pele proud, crews from AAA Flag and Banner Manufacturing Inc. in Los Angeles hung 185 World Cup banners late Wednesday near the Rose Bowl and other areas of the city.

If you were strolling the streets of Old Pasadena earlier this week, the only signs of the pending final were a handful of event merchandise T-shirts in a storefront display and a lone World Cup street-pole banner.

It was a far cry from 1994, when organizers appeared to pull out all the stops in Pasadena for the Men's FIFA World Cup Soccer event.

Officials at Tournament Souvenirs, 59 W. Del Mar Blvd., said they had a windfall of $1 million of sales in one month during the 1994 men's soccer event.

Gilberto Santamaria, vice president of Tournament Souvenirs, said he doesn't expect to make that much money this time around, but still thinks the store will move a lot of Women's World Cup merchandise today and Saturday.

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PHOTO (Color) Gilberto Santamaria, vice president of Tournament Souvenirs in Pasadena, believes the store will move a lot of Women's World Cup merchandise.

Walt Mancini