Purdue said it will lose $40,000 on Saturday's football game with the University of Hawai'i and warns UH will have problems getting marquee opponents from the Midwest and East unless it begins paying them more to come here.

"I think (UH) will have trouble scheduling teams in the future unless people are just going to accept the fact that to bring a team to the Islands, which is a beautiful place, is expensive," Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke said.

According to the contract, originally agreed to in 1994 and revised nine months ago, Purdue is to receive round-trip airfare for a 125-member traveling party, 85 hotel rooms for four nights, three buses to and from the airport, hotel, practice and game and a $50,000 check upon completion of the event.

The 1994 contract, which was to have been for a 2002 game only to be postponed to 2006, covered a traveling party of 100, provided 55 hotel rooms for three nights, buses and a $15,000 guarantee.

Burke said, "We love the opportunity to compete. You have a great program. They (the Warriors) are having a great year. You have a great state. All those things are wonderful. The kids are getting to see a part of the United States they've never seen, all those are positives ...

"I'm just telling you (that) you have a lot of positives but your downfall is you're gonna have to find a way to at last cover the costs. I think (three) thousand Purdue people coming over and the economic impact of that to the state ... It seems, whether it is the economic development people, somebody has to put together a package to make sure people aren't losing money to come to the Islands."

A Purdue spokesman said 2,958 tickets to the football game were sold through its ticket office. Between those, tickets secured through UH and fans who bought tickets to the Maui Invitational, well over 3,000 Boilermaker fans are expected in the state this week.

Purdue football coach Joe Tiller said, "quite frankly, I think Hawai'i is having a difficult time scheduling game because of their arrangements. Michigan State called them up and said they were not coming (in 2007). So, they have to go find another opponent."

Tiller said he twice asked Burke to cancel the game. "I told him to call them (UH) up and tell them, 'We're not coming. We're just not coming, go find another opponent.' "

Tiller said, "I do know that Morgan talked to their athletic director last winter and suggested that we were not interested in the game and he started into a litany of 'you can't back out on us now, we're losing games, we've had a tough time scheduling, don't do this, do the honorable thing and you agreed to it, la ta da...perhaps that's why we're playing. I don't know."

UH athletic director Herman Frazier said through a spokeswoman, "I don't think (finances) is becoming a hurdle (in scheduling). I think we have a problem with a couple of coaches. That is very obvious. But, for the most part, it has not become a hurdle."

Frazier said, "The guarantees that we are offering have been sufficient for everyone we've talked to thus far."

Including Michigan State, which has announced it won't be playing here next season, UH has yet to say how it is filling four openings on the 13-game regular season schedule for 2007.

Frazier said Purdue has not asked for considerations beyond what is contained in the contract. "We had several conversations with ... Morgan Burke last spring. He has always been cordial with everything we were trying to get done. The only request he made was to have a Pac-10 officiating crew. We were opposed to that at first because we knew the issue stemmed from Michigan State University. However, in the best interest of everyone involved and trying to eliminate the officiating issue, we went ahead and complied with the request for neutral officials."

Tiller said, "You come back from the trip and you don't have any financial consideration that maybe would help your football program. Our locker room needs to be redone. The floor of our weight room is disintegrating in front of our eyes. It would be nice to have some money to do something like that from this game. None of that will take place."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.