The 1999 Rose Bowl was the 85th Rose Bowl game and was played on Friday January 1, 1999, at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California. It was a college football bowl game at the end of the 1998 NCAA Division I-A football season. Wisconsin defeated UCLA by a score of 38-31. Ron Dayne of Wisconsin was named the Rose Bowl Player of the Game. He tied a modern Rose Bowl record with four touchdowns. This was the first year that the Rose Bowl became part of the Bowl Championship Series, ending a long-standing agreement between the Big Ten and the "West Representative" (PCC/AAWU) and the first year that the game was branded with corporate sponsorship. Unlike the other bowl games, the sponsor was not added to the title of the game, but instead as a presenter, so it became known as The Rose Bowl Game presented by AT&T.

The Bowl Coalition was restructured into the Bowl Alliance for the 1995 season, involving five conferences (reduced to four for the 1996 season) and three bowls. The championship game rotated among the three bowls. However, it still didn't include the Pac-10 or Big Ten champs.

Michigan and Nebraska split the National Championship during the 1997 season after never having met on the field. After a protracted round of negotiations, the Bowl Alliance was reconfigured into the Bowl Championship Series for the 1998 season. The Pasadena Tournament of Roses, which operates the Rose Bowl Game, agreed to release the Big Ten or Pac-10 champions if necessary to facilitate a national championship game. In return, the Rose Bowl was added to the yearly national championship game rotation.

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