Posted on: Friday, June 22, 2001

Refusing to move game wasn't an option

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

For all the moaning and groaning about moving its football game with Fresno State to a Friday afternoon to accommodate television, there was no way the University of Hawai'i was going to turn down ESPN's proposal.

Much as it might have wanted to spare its fans the anticipated horrors of another Halawa traffic jam and its team a short week of preparation, this was still, as they say, an offer UH couldn't refuse.

Not when it would have been the deal breaker on a multi-year, multi-million dollar television contract for a league that is desperate for the exposure it provides.

Not when, in the long run, UH has as much to gain from the deal as anybody in the Western Athletic Conference. And maybe more since ESPN could also pick up the Rainbow Classic.

For two lean years, ever since the WAC signed its last TV deal with Fox Sports, conference coaches have complained loud and often about a lack of visibility. Not just football coaches, either. The howls from basketball coaches have drowned out even the wailing of athletic directors, who weren't able to count on checks from Fox.

So when ESPN offered a reported $1 million per year for three years, conference athletic directors took notice. When ESPN offered what could be as many as seven football and four basketball dates this year, coaches got interested. ESPN's potential audience of 82 million (77 million for ESPN2) dwarfs that of Fox.

This is a conference starved for visibility and desperate to carve out an identity. Let's face it, most of the people who watch college football couldn't, even for an all-expenses-paid trip to Maui, name a handful of schools in the WAC.

Now that the WAC finally has a membership lineup that isn't going to change for a while, it behooves the conference to brand itself. The ESPN deal, which takes in all that the network can provide in promotion, highlights, visibility and authentication, is a step in that direction.

For UH to have hung up the deal when two schools, Texas-El Paso and Fresno State, had already agreed to switches of other games, would not have gone over well. Especially with commissioner Karl Benson having gone vigorously to bat for UH interests in the past.

For UH to have killed the deal would have made it a pariah, something a school 2,500 miles removed from its nearest competition and short on options, could ill afford. If the ESPN deal had collapsed, how long would it have taken disgruntled conference members to to demand UH start paying travel subsidies?

While moving the Fresno State game for TV is less than ideal, the overall agreement was one UH couldn't refuse.

Couldn't and didn't.