The Bowl Championship Series wants to present a model for how it will incorporate a fifth game to Rose Bowl officials by the end of the week.

The Rose Bowl is scheduled to begin negotiations on its television contract with ABC later this week. Rose Bowl officials need to know how changes in the BCS will affect their game.

“We need to be able to tell the Rose Bowl how it fits in,” Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said Monday in a telephone interview.

Hansen said BCS officials spoke Monday and are close to resolving what the BCS will look like when it adds a fifth game for the 2006 season.

Hansen said officials are leaning toward having the current BCS games — the Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose bowls — host two games, including the championship game, every four seasons.

The bowls, sponsors and ABC, which has a contract to televise the BCS through the 2005 season, didn’t like the idea of the championship game rotating between five games instead of the current four, Hansen said.

“No one wanted that and that turned us away from having five different games up front,” he said.

Mitch Dorger, CEO of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, said Monday night that the so-called “piggyback” model was the “least objectionable” scenario.

The Rose Bowl wants to protect its prestigious status, financial viability and its relationship with the Pac-10 and Big Ten, said Dorger.

“We are taking a pragmatic stance,” he said in a phone interview. “We are not going to be so unreasonable that people can’t work with us.

“We are trying to be part of a system and cooperate with the other members of that system.”

ABC paid $525 million to televise the BCS for seven years. The BCS and ABC are expected to start working on a new contract in the fall.

Big 12 Conference commissioner Kevin Weiberg said recently that about 12 bowls approached the BCS about becoming the fifth game.

The fifth game is being added to give schools from smaller conferences a better chance to make the BCS.

A model that would add another week to the season and match the No. 1 and No. 2 teams after the first four games are played has drawn support from ABC, but not the university presidents.

The BCS is in the process of simplifying the formula used to determine which teams play in the title game. BCS officials have said that the new formula would rely more on The AP poll and the ESPN coaches poll, and less on the computer polls.

“Some of the things that have been added on — strength of schedule and points for quality wins — we’re trying to see if those things should be removed,” said Weiberg, new BCS coordinator.

The BCS took a public relations beating last season when LSU and Oklahoma played in the Sugar Bowl for the national title, while Southern California was ranked No. 1 in both polls. There were two champions. LSU was voted No. 1 in the coaches poll and USC took the top spot in the AP poll.