ESPN wants it. University of Hawaii athletic director Hugh Yoshida wants it. Apparently, Rainbow football coach Fred vonAppen and Arizona counterpart Dick Tomey want it. Obviously, the Western Athletic Conference is all for it. Thursday start might 'expose' UH football
But will the public buy it?
Yoshida says ESPN is interested in televising the Rainbows' 1998 season opener against Tomey's Wildcats at Aloha Stadium.
Great. But there's a catch. The cable network wants to move the game from the night of Sept. 5 - a Saturday - to the afternoon of Sept. 3 - a Thursday. ESPN's thinking is to get a mid-week jump in kicking off the college football season.
I know what you're thinking. It's the same trepidation I have - moving the game to late afternoon, during rush-hour traffic - Halawa horror. And what about the idea of giving up a guaranteed crowd of 30,000 to 35,000 to take a chance on a smaller crowd on a Thursday afternoon, when a lot of folks are still working.
"It's a calculated risk," said Yoshida, who is playing phone-tag with ESPN about moving the game. Yoshida is interesting in a later start, around 5 p.m., for the West Coast. But ESPN is looking at 2 to 3 p.m. for broader exposure on the East Coast.
Exposure. That's the operative word right now.
Yoshida thinks it's important enough to sacrifice a loss at the gate. The TV revenue will be divided among the 16 WAC schools, although UH will get additional shares for its troubles.
"There's no question it will impact the gate," Yoshida said. "But what we're looking at are the long-term benefits, not only the revenue."
WITH that in mind, Yoshida is trying to get a second Hawaii football game on ESPN later in the season. With the Rainbows - if they can survive - finishing the season against Northwestern and Michigan the final two weeks of November, Yoshida has a good selling point.
If there is a second televised game, he insists it won't be on a Thursday afternoon.
ESPN's interest in televising the Arizona game stems from the success it enjoyed with the Rainbows' thriller against Notre Dame in the regular-season finale.
"ESPN said it was their best rating all year," Yoshida said.
Hawaii's victory over Kansas in the final of the Rainbow Classic basketball tournament also enhanced the relationship between the school and the network, according to Yoshida. And whether Yoshida liked it or not, seeing two basketball coaches jawing at each other on national TV, as UH's Riley Wallace and TCU's Billy Tubbs did Monday, also made for great theater.
Yoshida is working on two things that might make moving the game from Saturday night to Thursday afternoon more palatable to the public.
ONE possibility is offering a seven-game, season-ticket package. A season-ticket holder, who might have to work, has the option to buy the Arizona game separately.
Also, to help reduce traffic, he would buy parking spaces and give them to car pools with four or more passengers.
One way or the other, Yoshida is trying to work out a deal with ESPN as soon as possible so that UH officials can start season-ticket promotions and sales.
Revenue aside, he thinks the exposure on national TV will be worth it.
Of course, exposure is one thing. Getting exposed as a bad team for all to see could hurt the Rainbow football program.
But Tomey wouldn't pile it on his former school, would he? Then again, with Tomey's offense at Arizona in recent years, who says the Wildcats can?