Posted on: Friday, July 30, 2004

UH may play Friday nights under new ESPN contract

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

RENO, Nev. — In exchange for not having to play home games on Tuesday or Wednesday nights, the University of Hawai'i football team will be compelled to honor any ESPN request to host Friday games.

Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson announced the league's new six-year deal with ESPN that begins this coming academic year. The WAC is assured up to eight football games each year on ESPN or ESPN2 — none guaranteed for a Saturday night.

Benson said it would be "unrealistic" for UH to host Tuesday or Wednesday games because of the time difference. Those games start in prime time on the Mainland.

Although the same problems would exist for Friday games, forcing an afternoon kickoff at Aloha Stadium, Benson said there is more flexibility in ESPN's Friday night schedule.

"ESPN recognizes that playing a game at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday is different than playing a game at Boise at 7 o'clock," Benson said.

But "if ESPN requests Hawai'i to play a Friday game, contractually we're obligated to deliver that game," he added.

UH athletic director Herman Frazier has said he did not want UH to host any games on Friday unless they tied in with holidays. Frazier said yesterday he has not yet seen a copy of the new deal between the WAC and ESPN.

"I think it is speculative at this point," Frazier said. "If they are going to do anything like that, they would talk to us prior to announcing any agreement or anything of that nature."

Benson said the WAC has agreed to pay an "inconvenience fee" of $50,000 to the host school of a weekday game. Benson said the fee amount is set.

"We're always willing to try and cooperate with ESPN, and we need to comply with the contract," Benson said. "But at the same time, we need to do it as effectively as we can for each school. We certainly are going to push for later start times (for Hawai'i), but there's no guarantee we can do that."

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8051.