Sheraton to sponsor bowl

Advertiser Staff

Make way for the ... Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl?

A press conference has been scheduled for tomorrow to announce the participation of Sheraton Hotels in Hawai'i, a division of Starwood Hotels and Resorts International Inc., in the title sponsorship of the year-old Hawai'i Bowl.

The press conference will be held at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a Sheraton property.

Terms of the deal were not immediately available.

Pete Derzis, vice president of ESPN Regional Television (ERT), which operates the bowl, is to make the announcement, a University of Hawai'i press release said.

UH is guaranteed a berth in the Christmas day game if the Warriors win at least seven of their 13 regular-season games to become bowl eligible.

The bowl is contracted to match representatives from the Western Athletic Conference, of which UH is a member, and Conference USA. Last year, Tulane defeated UH, 36-28.

The bowl drew more than 2.1 million households on ESPN and paid each participating conference $868,000.

Sheraton will replace ConAgra Foods, which dropped out after the inaugural year. ConAgra's sponsorship had been worth "mid-six figures," according to Derzis, who said he had been told ConAgra had taken a new marketing direction after a management change.