Hoping to make the best of a delicate supply-and- demand situation, the University of Hawaii unveiled its ticket plan for on-campus Rainbow Warrior football games this coming season.

UH created a priority order because there are more season-ticket holders and contracted obligations than available seats at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex on the Manoa campus.

The situation stems from the Warriors being forced to relocate their home games from 46-year-old Aloha Stadium. In December, officials at the Halawa facility said spectators could no longer attend events there safely because of structural deterioration. A new stadium at that site is optimistically scheduled to be completed in 2023.

Declining the option of playing in an empty Aloha Stadium, UH decided to retrofit the Ching complex for home football games. UH received zoning approval to expand seating at Ching up to 10,000. For this year Ching will have about 9,000 seats.

Because of the pandemic, UH did not allow spectators at its 2020 home games. But in 2019 UH had about 12,500 season-ticket holders. That number increases to about 16,000 when factoring in tickets reserved for visiting teams, corporate partners, business obligations and UH students. As part of the agreement for receiving student fees, UH is required to hold 10% of seating capacity for students at sporting events.

After several meetings, UH officials decided that fans who bought 2019 season tickets would be eligible to buy this year’s season tickets.

From that pool a priority order was set, beginning with membership status in H-Club, a program that supports UH athletics. There are more than 11,000 H-Club members in seven tiers. “National champion” ($25,000 membership) is the first level. “Captain” ($2,000) is the most popular status. “Fan” status ($50) is the seventh tier.

UH is limiting a “national champion” member to 12 season tickets, an “All-American” to six tickets, “All-Conference” to four and status in the remaining four tiers to two season tickets.

Priority in each grouping will be on total years an account has purchased season tickets dating to 2001, the first year of electronic ticket records.

Fans have until June 7 to finalize their H-Club status.

On Thursday, UH sent letters to H-Club members and season-ticket holders detailing the plan and notifying them where their current H-Club status ranks.

“Unfortunately, we will not be able to accommodate the 16,000 ticket commitments with the capacity at 9,000 in the first year,” UH athletic director David Matlin said. “Those commitments include season-ticket holders, students and contractual agreements with corporate partners and visiting teams. Our goal is to be as transparent and inclusive as possible. It is a delicate balancing act between revenue generation and inclusiveness.”

Matlin said UH will set aside several tickets, then sell them as individual game tickets to 2019 season-ticket holders who were not able to buy season tickets.

“This will enable more access to our season-ticket holders,” Matlin said.

Matlin said additional tickets will be available if visiting teams, corporate affiliates and UH students do not use their full allotment.

Matlin said UH will seek approval to expand Ching’s seating capacity to 15,000-plus next year.

“This situation is temporary, and we are optimistic that we will be able to expand seating capacity up to 15,000 fans in Year 2 in order to provide more opportunities for our loyal fans to experience the excitement of Hawaii Warrior football in person,” Matlin said.

The retrofit project for Ching is taking shape. This week UH released renderings of the project, which will feature new turf, a video scoreboard, bleachers, luxury boxes and booths for coaches and media. Matlin said the prefabricated bleachers and luxury boxes for the makai side are ready to be shipped from the mainland to Honolulu.

For this season, tailgating will not be allowed in UH parking areas.

Matlin said there have been discussions on bundling season tickets and parking passes.