It wasn’t just the 31-23 loss in the University of Hawaii’s last visit to Nevada-Las Vegas in 2017 that had some Rainbow Warrior fans talking after the game.

It was, well, the chicken fingers. Or, lack thereof.

As the signs atop Sam Boyd Stadium sideline touted, UNLV had Raising Cane’s as its “official chicken fingers of the Rebels” on the premises.

“How come we don’t have an official chicken fingers?” some UH fans wondered at the time. Really.

It was true. UH was lacking in that department.

But no more. This past week it was announced that UH had taken on the Louisiana-based company as an official chicken restaurant partner. As proof, head football coach Nick Rolovich was behind the counter helping serve them up during a recent TV photo op.

It was the latest installment in UH’s quickly mounting portfolio of “official” partners. In recent months UH has declared an official airline (Hawaiian Airlines), an official beer (Heineken) and, yes, as the signage at the Stan Sheriff Center attests, even an “official off-campus housing partner of UH athletics,” Hale Mahana Apartments.

Take that, UNLV.

They are signs — dollar signs — of the times as UH attempts to leave no business sector or fast food group untapped in the drive to erase its long-running string of deficits. School president David Lassner has charged athletics with balancing its more than $40 million annual budget by 2020, no small task in an industry where the vast majority of UH’s NCAA Division I peers are also running well in the red.

“Corporate opportunities such as these are beneficial to our athletics department and we are excited about this new partnership with (fill in the blank),” as athletic director David Matlin is quoted in recent announcements.

UH has had a lucrative corporate sponsor program for decades, of course. Upwards of 90 entities, including your favorite newspaper. But not until recently has the “official (fill in the blank) of UH athletics” seal of approval been trotted out or so widely employed.

That was part of the announced deal nearly two and a half years ago when UH broke with a 15-year practice of in-house marketing and sponsorships by selling its multimedia rights to IMG College of Winston-Salem, N. C., a division of WME IMG, a global marketing firm.

IMG, which has its staff on campus, gets a percentage of the business it drums up while paying UH an annual fee. (UH coaches are not permitted to endorse competing entities per the agreement).

So the hunt is on for more partners on which to apply the official stamp of UH approval. And, as you might imagine, the field is potentially both wide open and fertile. Can an official malasada, manapua, pho or poke be far off? How about a bounty hunter (Dog Chapman?) or bail bondsman?

Meanwhile, now that the chicken fingers gap has finally been licked, UNLV was asked how deep the Rebels’ portfolio of partners is in comparison with UH.

“Well, we don’t have (an official) beer, yet,” a UNLV spokesman acknowledged somewhat mournfully. “(But) I’m going right out and sign one up,” he said.