Posted on: Sunday, May 27, 2001

Ferd Lewis
UH baseball needs someone to plug financial drain

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Sports Columnist

While it remains to be seen who will emerge as the next University of Hawai'i baseball coach, there is no doubt who it must be.

The Rainbows are counting on their new hire, whoever it turns out to be, becoming a pied piper of sorts; someone who, in rebuilding the baseball program, can be as much a winner at the box office as on the field.

After a net loss of $1.78 million on baseball over six years, according to figures supplied by UH, school officials say they are counting on the new coach reversing the trend that has seen the sport become a drain on the 19-sport, $16 million athletic department budget.

Nor are they alone. UH's broadcast partners are also hoping the new coach can revive interest in a program whose struggles have affected radio and television audiences and sales.

"Like June Jones was a huge positive for football, we're hoping a new baseball coach will help stir up interest in baseball," said Mike Kelly, general manager of KCCN radio (1420), which holds UH radio rights.

UH has an offer on the table to Pat Murphy, who is coaching Arizona State in the NCAA Tournament.

In the heyday of UH baseball, the late 1970s through early 1990s, the Rainbows figured in both the baseball polls and attendance leadership, appearing in 11 NCAA Tournaments, winning six Western Athletic Conference titles and regularly selling out Rainbow Stadium.

Through 1993, the Rainbows went to seven NCAA Tournaments in 10 years. And the fans streamed both to Manoa to watch them and to follow them on TV and radio. It made UH one of the most profitable baseball programs in the country and helped underwrite other sports on campus.

In 1993, the Rainbows played to 34 sellouts in 44 home dates, an average of 3,164 per game in 4,312-seat Rainbow Stadium. Revenues of nearly $698,000 helped turn a $53,605 net profit. But that was the last time they appeared in a regional and attendance has been in a free-fall ever since.

This year turnstile attendance plummeted to 1,091, which UH officials say is the lowest since 1980, four years before the present Rainbow Stadium opened.

KFVE, which holds local television rights to UH sports, said its baseball ratings have tumbled more than 60 percent from an average of approximately 45,000 households seven years ago to 15,000 this February, the last ratings period for which numbers are available.

"They're the lowest of any major sport right now," said John Fink, president and general manager of KFVE and its sister station, KHNL.

KCCN said its baseball ratings have also "dropped very significantly" from what it called the "golden years of Rainbow baseball."

"At one time," Kelly said, "baseball stood alone and came close to doing as well as football." The station, which said it used to be able to heavily sell baseball-only sponsorships in the Rainbows' heyday, has been unable to replace departed long-time sponsors such as Arakawa's and Taniguchi Store. Now it must sell the sport as part of a package tied to football.

For UH, the search for a new coach thus comes with an eye on broadcast contracts that will be coming up for renegotiation. Rights fees, among the major revenue sources, account for nearly 10 percent of UH's annual revenue.

UH's agreement with KFVE pays $1.2 million per season and ends after next year. Baseball currently accounts for about 25 percent of the 120 UH events KFVE does annually.

The radio deal, which pays $282,500 plus 50 percent of revenues that exceed $800,000 — down $40,000 from the previous contract — expires after the 2003 season. Baseball accounts for about 35 percent of KCCN's UH sports programming, station officials said.

In UH accounting, broadcast revenues are not broken up by sport nor are venue expenses charged against them.

Only a handful of college baseball teams make money and Jim Donovan, UH associate athletic director, said, "We'd be ecstatic if we could get back to just breaking even."

Donovan said if baseball could make that much of a turnaround, its financial growth potential is second only to football. "If baseball attendance could go back up to 3,000 (per game), it could, potentially, result in a re-gain of $500,000-$750,000 through ticket sales, sponsorships, signage etc." Donovan said. "That's money that could be put back into the baseball program, used to upgrade our other sports and fund gender equity."

To attract a coach it believes would be able to produce such a turnaround, UH has been working on a contract that would both nearly double the advertised salary range for the position, $51,000-$75,000, and substantially improve upon the $90,000 base salary that Les Murakami reportedly made in his last season.

In addition, school officials have reportedly told candidates for the job that improvements will be made to the facilities and assistant coaches salaries upgraded.

One candidate who talked to the school and asked not to be identified said, "They indicated to me that they are serious about doing what it takes to win on this level. They want to get back to being a Top 20 team."

Said KCCN's Kelly: "We've been around for the bad times; we hope these will be the start of the good times."