The University of Hawai'i holds most of the cards in negotiations today over whether ESPN will show next week's football game with Fresno State.

The main parties — UH, Fresno State, ESPN and the Western Athletic Conference — are scheduled to hold a conference call today to iron out details.

UH associate athletic director John McNamara said "it would be premature" to say whether negotiations and resolution of production issues will lead to ESPN showing what would be a record sixth Warrior game this season. If ESPN does show the Nov. 10 game, the date and time (6:05 p.m.) would likely remain the same, but ESPN will be blacked out in Hawai'i and Fresno.

No matter what happens, UH officials said the game will only be available in Hawai'i via the KFVE/Oceanic pay-per-view package as originally scheduled. "Nothing changes for our fans," McNamara said.

Under terms of the WAC's contract deal with ESPN, the network may take up to five games involving a member school. ESPN can request additional games but neither the WAC nor the schools involved are obligated to grant permission. ESPN has already shown UH games with Louisiana Tech and San Jose State and is contracted to carry the Nevada (Nov. 16), Boise State (Nov. 23) and Washington (Dec. 1) games.

UH officials said a precedent for blackouts was set in 2002 when ESPN asked Boise State to grant an extra game against San Jose State and the Broncos insisted ESPN black out the local market to protect an area TV deal. In the current UH situation, both KFVE and a Fresno station have plans to show the game and would like to be protected.

"Certainly having additional national exposure for the program and for the state of Hawai'i is something we want to pursue, but we also want to make sure we do it with all considerations to all parties," McNamara said.

An ESPN spokesman declined comment.

"Efforts are being made to accommodate everyone's interests," said Karl Benson, WAC commissioner.

The number of games taken by conference TV partners has made for major changes in the way UH conducts its TV rights in recent years. As the football program became more successful and ESPN began taking more games away from the local package, the school faced a heavy drop in rights fees. Pay-per-view began in 2002 as a way for UH to maximize revenue and attract fans who were not able to attend games. In 2005, in exchange for an up-front guarantee of $1.75 million annually for TV rights, UH began turning over the bulk of pay-per-view receipts to KFVE. UH receives a percentage of pay-per-view sales at certain benchmark levels. Last year that was $410,000 for UH.

UH football games are shown twice on a pay-per-view basis on Saturdays, and are also shown for free on KFVE on Sunday mornings, the third year of the practice. Free, delayed telecast of home games are no longer shown the same night.

UH officials said no kickoff time has yet been set by ESPN for the Washington game.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.