The Sugar Bowl check will be an especially sweet one for the financially strapped University of Hawai'i athletic department.

UH is to receive $4,385,555 for its participation in the Jan. 1 game against Georgia when checks go out at the end of the fiscal year June 30 and it expects to net approximately $2.2 million after expenses, school and Western Athletic Conference officials said yesterday.

The record payout to a non-Bowl Championship Series-signatory school is expected to go primarily to reducing the athletic department's mounting red ink. UH athletic director Jim Donovan, who inherited a balance sheet with a $4.4 million accumulated net deficit when he took over last month, said he hopes to use $1.5 million to balance the budget for the current fiscal year.

Options for the remaining $600,000 to $700,000, if it stays within the athletic department, include reducing the accumulated net deficit, making investments in the athletic department and purchasing video equipment for the football team.

"As a university, we're one team and there are going to be times when the athletic department can do things for the student body and other areas of the campus and we'll do them," Donovan said. "There will also be times when the campus can help out the athletic department. That's what it is all about being one team."

Donovan said it will be at least another week before all the Sugar Bowl expenses are totaled. From its take, UH is responsible for airfare, hotel and other bowl-associated expenses.

Boise State was paid $4,294,000 for its 2007 Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma and netted approximately $3.1 million after expenses.

UH officials had been told to expect at least $4.2 million for the school's share of the BCS pot but had been awaiting the final figure, which was determined by a percentage of the overall five-bowl BCS take.

Mike Finn, associate commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference that helps administer the BCS this year, said this year's distribution will be a record one for the decade-old BCS but declined to say what the total will be other than it will exceed $100 million.

Georgia, which routed UH, 41-10, earned $17 million for the Southeastern Conference, which is one of the six BCS signatory leagues. The others are the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Big East.

The WAC, Mountain West, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference and Sun Belt Conference divide approximately $9.5 million, plus an additional stipend for the WAC having a member in a BCS game. UH was the only school from the so-called Group of 5 to play this year and one of three to appear in the BCS history.

Under conference bylaws, UH receives 70 percent of the WAC's take of approximately $6,265,000. But, with the bylaw under review, that could change downward for the next WAC member to crack the BCS.

Because of UH's participation in the Sugar Bowl, the rest of the nine-school WAC is cashing in, too. The eight other conference schools will each receive $410,555. The Fresno Bee reported that Fresno State plans to use its share of the BCS windfall to deal with a $343,000 budget shortfall.

But the check is only part of UH's reward for its BCS appearance, school and conference officials say. "Our whole school and state benefitted from the exposure leading up to and through that game," Donovan said.

"Hawai'i and the WAC (are) benefitting from the very valuable recognition the Warriors' season brought," said Karl Benson, WAC commissioner. "To do it with the WAC having teams in back-to-back years is a very strong statement about the WAC."

Nearly 8 million households tuned in to watch the Sugar Bowl, the largest audience of any UH sporting event. That ranked the game sixth in viewership among the 32 bowl games played for the 2007 season.