Hawai'i might get bowl with backing of WAC
By Ferd Lewis and Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Sports Writers
There is a "reasonable chance" a college football postseason bowl game, with the backing of the Western Athletic Conference, will operate in Honolulu next year, league commissioner Karl Benson said.
"The WAC believes Hawai'i is a great destination, it has 20-plus years of bowl-hosting experience, and we would give serious consideration to reinstituting a bowl in Hawai'i in the future," Benson said.
Benson, in town for meetings with University of Hawai'i and officials of Aloha Sports Inc., said the conference already has had discussions with ESPN about possible interest in televising such a game. Last week, ESPN and the WAC finalized a three-year agreement to televise regular-season football and basketball games.
Hawai'i, which has played host to at least one bowl each season since 1982, lost both the Aloha and O'ahu bowls when Fritz Rohlfing, president of Aloha Sports, Inc., announced in April that the games would relocate. The NCAA approved moving the Aloha Bowl to San Francisco and the O'ahu Bowl to Seattle for the coming season.
Because the NCAA has put a moratorium on certifying new bowls, it is likely the conference would either acquire an interest in and relocate another bowl, or move one of the two games it already helps to underwrite. The WAC has ties to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, and the Silicon Valley Bowl in San Jose, Calif. The Humanitarian Bowl is shown on ESPN. Fox has the contract for the Silicon Valley Bowl.
Benson said "it is too early to speculate" which bowl the conference might look to move here.
But Boise State, which officially joins the WAC this week, has played in the past two Humanitarian Bowls, and it is not known how many more appearances it can make in the game before fan interest wanes.
The Silicon Valley Bowl, meanwhile, has been victimized by the technology-industry bust, and it failed to secure a title sponsorship for last year's inaugural game.
Benson said this isn't the first time the WAC has looked into investing in a game here. A year ago, the WAC and University of Hawai'i were approached about acquiring one or both of the Hawai'i bowls. Instead, Bowl Games of Hawai'i sold the bowls to Aloha Sports, Inc., which operated them last year.
Benson said any bowl played here likely will include a provision that will allow UH to receive a berth if it meets a certain criteria. In recent years, the Warriors were guaranteed a berth in either the Aloha Bowl or O'ahu Bowl if they won at least seven games.
This year, only the WAC champion is guaranteed a berth in the Humanitarian or Silicon Valley bowls. Those bowls, with consultation from the WAC, are empowered to pick the second league team, even if the team does not finish second in the WAC.
