For one of the few times in recent years we know early on who figures to be the University of Hawaii’s quarterback come the season opener.

But while the quarterback picture is HD-clear with Dru Brown taking the snap, what is less sharply in focus is the future of live streaming of Rainbow Warrior football.

After a year of tinkering we might not know even at kickoff of the season opener, five months hence.

While live streaming of many of UH’s other Big West Conference-based sports, including Rainbow Wahine volleyball, resumed in late 2016 after a blackout, football in the Mountain West remains a whole other issue. One apparently not easy for a quick solution where technological and varied constituencies are involved.

“I’m optimistic we’re going to figure it out, but I can’t put a percentage on being able to do it (by the Aug. 26 season opener),” said David Matlin, UH athletic director.

Prior to the 2016 season UH football games picked up by Oceanic Time Warner, the holder of rights in Hawaii, had been live streamed on the mainland.

The technical ability to block internet protocol addresses in Hawaii allowed Oceanic to make the games available on the continent to the families of UH players, alums, potential Rainbow Warrior recruits and fans of other MWC teams without the requirement of pay-per-view purchase.

But UH and conference officials have said increasing numbers of technically akamai island-based fans found avenues to circumvent geofencing, as the geographically-based restrictions are known, and access the games without subscribing.

Tumbling subscription numbers in 2015, they came to understand, were not solely related to the team’s string of consecutive losing seasons.

Of importance to Oceanic — and by extension UH — was Oceanic’s ability to maintain the exclusivity of PPV content, for which the carrier this year pays the school a minimum of about $2.4 million. For UH, which does not share in the MWC TV rights pot, that up-front money represents about 6 percent of the athletic department’s budget and can grow if additional sales targets are hit.

Nor is Oceanic’s parent company, Charter, which took over last year, likely to stand by as its investment loses value.

The current contract, which runs through June of 2020, assures Oceanic “full” rights to any and all media including, “TV, online, mobile or on demand …”

The contract requires that UH, “shall not and shall not cause its affiliates to, license, authorize or permit production, exhibition or other related use of the college games within its territory by any other party than licensee, and shall not itself produce, exhibit or use in a related matter the college games for any purpose within the territory.”

Meanwhile, as the 2016 season progressed, UH and the MWC got complaints from followers of the Rainbow Warriors’ opponents who suddenly found themselves blacked out. “There was definitely some feedback,” a UH spokesman said.

A Las Vegas TV station cut a deal to bring the Oceanic feed into its market but time zone differences made that less attractive in other areas.

The UH streaming issues come as MWC officials and members, frustrated with inconvenient starting times and revenues that pale in comparison with other conferences, begin to take a deeper look at future alternatives to traditional network TV partners ESPN and CBS Sports.

The MWC contracts with the networks, from whom UH does not share in the revenue, run through the 2019-20 school year.

As for UH’s 2017 season, “It is still early in the process and we’re trying to find way to get it done correctly,” said Dan Schmidt, general manager and executive producer of UH sports on Oceanic.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.