The 2009 Rose Bowl, the 95th edition of the annual game, was a college football bowl game played on Thursday, January 1, 2009 at the same-named stadium in Pasadena, California. Because of sponsorship by Citi, the first game in the 2009 edition of the Bowl Championship Series was officially titled the Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi. The contest was televised on ABC with a radio broadcast on ESPN Radio beginning at 4:30 PM US EST with kickoff at 5:10 PM. Ticket prices for all seats in the Rose Bowl were listed at $145. The Rose Bowl Game was a contractual sell-out, with 64,500 tickets allocated to the participating teams and conferences. The remaining tickets went to the Tournament of Roses members, sponsors, City of Pasadena residents, and the general public.

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including an opportunity for the top two teams to compete in the BCS National Championship Game. The system was in place for the 1998 through 2013 seasons and in 2014 was replaced by the College Football Playoff.