I asked him that very same question. How could they possibly look at everyone who is invited to go to the Rose Bowl Game. Without him telling me specifics, the committee members get the tickets well in advance of the actual game. That's all he would tell me, and then he said, "draw you're own conclusions".
I had joked about going into my local Pac-10 Headquarters (They're located in Walnut Creek, where I live), get a quick internship, and pick up a couple of tickets that way. My buddy told me that the respective conferences get very few tickets. I found that hard to believe, to which was followed up with the comment, "If you are a major sponsor of the Rose Bowl, you get a major ticket allotment".