Aloha Stadium taking its toll

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Four months before its football team opens the season there against two-time defending national champion Southern California, the University of Hawai'i-Manoa athletic department is scheduled to go to Aloha Stadium in search of another type of milestone victory.

This one would be at the bargaining table Thursday where UH, coming off its third consecutive year of an athletic department deficit, hopes to begin winning a reduction of the $874,179 combined rent and expenses it said it is billed as the only Western Athletic Conference school that neither owns nor operates its own football facility.

"Obviously, the most important item on our plate is the Aloha Stadium rent situation," athletic director Herman Frazier told the school's Board of Regents Friday where auditors pegged the deficit for the 2004 fiscal year at $545,000.

"It is somewhat ironic that our negative number for the end (of '04) is the amount we paid for rent," Frazier said.

UH is entering its 30th season as the major on-the-field tenant in Halawa and the issue of costs has grown along with the accumulated $4.5 million athletic department deficit auditors said has been rung up over the past three fiscal years.

New deal would help

UH projects to be somewhere between breaking even and a $300,000 deficit in the fiscal year that concludes June 30, 2005 and an improved rental agreement at Aloha Stadium could help it return to solvency before the projected 2006 solvency or the 2007, when it is scheduled to pay off accumulated loans under Frazier's five-year plan.

A new deal could result in a "$500,000-to-$1 million swing" in fortunes, "depending upon what we might be able to work out," UH associate athletic director Tom Sadler told the regents.

Under the current arrangement with Aloha Stadium, UH said its bill for the 2004 football season broke down as $320,065 (rent) and $554,114 (expenses).

The current deal, in which UH said it does not share in concessions, parking or signage revenue has been characterized as "fighting with both hands tied behind our back," by Sadler who said "I will say the stadium authority and stadium staff have been extremely cooperative in hearing what we have to say."

Still, Sadler said, "I'm unaware of any other school or any other (athletics) department in the WAC that pays what we do in terms of percent of rent. We pay all our expenses and we receive virtually no revenue from playing in the stadium."

Working hand in hand

Regent Alvin Tanaka said UH should be "on an equal footing with the people (you're) competing against" and urged the UH administration to press for a solution.

Asked about the terms, Frazier told the board, "(It is) not only that we don't receive any money from the concessions, but we pay for the cleanup."

Aloha Stadium spokesman Patrick Leonard said, "we want to work this out. They are our partners for many years and we want to have them come over and communicate with us because we want to work with them to fix this."

Frazier said the chances of UH getting new terms "are favorable. I think they (Aloha Stadium) also understand the predicaments that we are in."

Others share revenue

But Aloha Stadium said it is also waiting for payment on its current deal with UH. "Since late January the (UH athletic) department has maintained a past balance due to Aloha Stadium of over $270,000 in unpaid rent reimbursements," Leonard said.

"As a result of unpaid rent and reimbursements, the Aloha Stadium authority had no other alternative but to lay off 49 workers in March of 2005," Leonard said.

Sadler told the regents UH surveyed Southern California, UCLA and Miami, which play in municipal stadiums, "and they all participate in the revenue and some don't pay expenses. But the bottom line is they all have a deal which is far, far greater than what we have."

"We're bringing in the business and the concessions; If we (weren't) there, there would be nothing," Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert said. "We're bringing in 30,000, 40,000...hopefully sometime 50,000 (fans). You have to take that into consideration," Englert said.

Frazier said the deal UH operates under "is an annual contract but the parameters were set some time ago."

In addition, Frazier said, high schools and Hawai'i Pacific University use the stadium and "don't pay anything."

But Leonard said that has been misunderstood and "UH shares the same, identical reimbursement fee charged to virtually every organization (for cleanup, security, ticket sales, ushers etc.) and it is based upon attendance."

Pay-per-view has hurt

Leonard said, UH's "percentage of rent hasn't changed (over the years)." In addition, he said UH now has pay-per-view revenue which did not exist prior to 2002. UH said it realized $812,310 in rights fees from last season's per-per-view based upon an average of 10,000 pay-per-view sales per home game.

"For Aloha Stadium, the pay-per-view has decreased attendance by 5,000 fans per game and thus reduced some of the revenues we would have achieved because we get nothing from pay-per-view," Leonard said.

An appointed nine-member stadium authority sets policy and will be undergoing a change June 30 when the terms of three of its members expire. As of July 1, Gov. Linda Lingle appointees will be in the majority (six) for the first time.

Governor not involved

Gov. Lingle does not have a position on the UH operating or paying rent at Aloha Stadium, spokesman Russell Pang said. He said the governor, "will leave that to the (stadium) authority."

One of new appointees is Marcia Klompus, wife of Lingle's communication director, Lenny Klompus, and a former co-owner of the Aloha and O'ahu Bowls as well as past operator of the Hula Bowl. Marcia Klompus said, "My own opinion, for years, is that I have never understood (UH) paying the state."

However, as a member of the authority, "I have (no opinion) because I haven't seen the numbers or any of that yet."

Operation of Aloha Stadium by UH is an issue that has percolated for years. Football coach June Jones, since arriving in 1999, has advocated control of the facility. In January, State Rep. K. Mark Takai, D-34th (Pearl City, Newtown, Royal Summit) reintroduced a bill to turn over operation of Aloha Stadium to UH. But the measure faced opposition from the HGEA, members of the Stadium Authority and others and failed to make it out of committee.

But indications are UH is willing to leave the running of the stadium to the Department of Accounting and General Services, under which the stadium authority operates, for a better rental deal.

Frazier said Friday, "we don't want to be in the concert business and I don't want to be in the business of doing things like that. But I think we should run it, at least, for our games. You run your own party, I think that's what people are saying."

UH Interim President David McClain has said, "Anytime we are paying 800K out the door, we're always interested in finding ways for us not to have to do that again."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044

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