UH declines offer from ESPN to play Iowa State

By Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writers

The University of Hawai'i football team has rejected an offer to play Iowa State on Labor Day weekend because the deal required the game to be played on a Friday afternoon at Aloha Stadium, UH athletic director Herman Frazier said.

ESPN, the deal's broker, offered to televise the Aug. 29 game nationally on the cable network.

"We said, 'No,' " Frazier said. "They wanted ... to go at 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. I said, 'I haven't been here long, but that's not going to work.' I don't think that's good for our fans."

Iowa State would have replaced Akron, which is scheduled to play UH in the season opener Saturday, Aug. 30. But Akron's second game is at Wisconsin, and the Zips were looking to move the UH game or were willing to not play UH this season if the Iowa State game had materialized.

As of now, Frazier said, Akron will honor its commitment to play UH as scheduled.

UH usually plays its home football games on Saturday nights, but Frazier said he is not opposed to scheduling games on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons, as the school has done to accommodate national television.

"It's one thing on a Friday night, but 2 o'clock on a Friday just doesn't work," he said.

He said he has observed the fans at UH home games, and "I think many of those people would have a hard time getting to a 2 p.m. game on a Friday."

He said he did not think he would accept the Friday afternoon proposal, even if ESPN offered to pay an inconvenience fee.

"You'll get money, but how many people will I lose (in attendance)?" Frazier said.

Besides, he said: "If we were to do something like that, I would need buy-in from everyone. We would talk to the city, talk to the mayor, talk to all of the people. We would do it the right way. At this point, there wasn't enough time to get it done."