Noting the yellow “do not cross” tape strung across the entrances to aisles on the upper level at Aloha Stadium before Tuesday’s SoFi Hawaii Bowl, a visitor from Utah inquired if it might be a crime scene.
No, if there was a “crime” it has been that, despite a 10-5 season, plenty of offensive fireworks from the Rainbow Warriors and their first divisional title in the Mountain West Conference, there hasn’t been enough demand for tickets to University of Hawaii football games to even fill half the stadium on average or prompt the opening of some upper level sections at the 50,000-seat facility.
For regular-season games where UH is the client, the upper end zone seats aren’t opened for sale. For the Hawaii Bowl, which is owned and operated by Charlotte, N.C.,-based ESPN Events, the whole upper level (sidelines as well as end zones) wasn’t opened for purchase.
UH has appeared in its backyard bowl nine times since its 2002 inception, eight of them in the Christmas or Christmas Eve slot, and Tuesday’s game was the most sparsely attended of the bunch even with decades-old nemesis Brigham Young University as the opponent and blue-clad Cougar fans supplying, maybe, 30 percent of the 19,539 on hand.
The bowl game was but the latest and, perhaps, most jarring example yet of the uphill struggle it has become to attract ticket buyers for UH football games, regular or postseason, and why remedying the situation needs to be Job One in the offseason for administrators.
While head coach Nick Rolovich is out recruiting players, the department needs to get bold and creative in demonstrating entertainment value to entice fans to the ticket window.
Work with the concessionaire, restructure the TV rights, which are coming up for renegotiation. Do something, because the current marketing blueprint, whatever it is, isn’t producing the numbers UH needs. The ’Bows averaged just 20,520 for their eight regular-season home games this season, down an average of 1,669 from the 2018 season and 13,315 less than 2010, that last time UH had a 10-win season.
Even with the most attractive home schedule in a decade and a head coach actively promoting his team in the community and on social media, sales of season tickets reached just 12,573, up 97 from 2018, but revenue dropped by $12,786.
Overall, season ticket sales have declined by 1,723 from 2017 with revenue plummeting by nearly $250,000.
While football more than pays for itself through direct and indirect revenue, its ability to help fund non-income sports in UH’s 21-team athletic program is receding.
Declining ticket sales are not a problem unique to UH or even college football. Pro sports, too, has suffered.
In college football, most of the Rainbow Warriors’ peers in the 130-member NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, even the elite Power Five conference members, are drawing smaller crowds. For example, half the schools in the 14-member Southeastern Conference had attendance declines in 2019, according to NCAA statistics.
But unlike its Group of Five peers, UH is required to underwrite travel costs for its conference opponents in football, as well as most others sports, to play here. And unlike the more well-heeled Power Five schools, including the SEC, UH takes in a 10th, or less, of their $25 million-$35 million in annual media earnings to cushion the financial blow.
If a 10-5, division and bowl-winning season can’t move ticket sales significantly forward, you shudder to think what a mediocre or poor season might mean.
—
DRAWING A CROWD
Hawaii’s average home attendance for football in recent years
Season | Attendance | Record/Conf.
2019 | 20,520 | 10-5 (5-3)
2018 | 22,189 | 8-6 (5-3)
2017 | 19,561 | 3-9 (1-7)
2016 | 21,060 | 7-7 (4-4)
2015 | 18,461 | 3-10 (0-8)
2014 | 21,469 | 4-9 (3-5)
2013 | 26,637 | 1-11 (0-8)
2012 | 25,573 | 3-9 (1-7)
2011 | 28,194 | 6-7 (3-4)
2010 | 33,835 | 10-4 (7-1)
Source: University of Hawaii
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
