It wasn’t a chilling premonition about what would unfold on the field that prompted Rockne Freitas, the University of Hawaii’s acting athletic director, to skip the Warriors’ football road trip to Brigham Young last week.
The reason was more basic.
“We need to save money wherever we can,” Freitas said.
The UH athletic department has been in belt-tightening mode, and it could get cinched further if the leading money-maker, football, continues to struggle.
Blowouts and an unattractive, widely spaced home schedule can do that.
Which is why the Warriors’ fate in Saturday’s game at San Diego State on the CBS Sports Network will have something to say about the bottom line.
As much as the Warriors (1-3) go to Qualcomm Stadium for a victory, what they can least afford is a third consecutive lopsided loss. What they — and the 20-team athletic department they support — urgently require is a performance that portends hope for the rest of the season. Something not easy to come by with an injury-decimated defensive line.
Consider that before the bottom fell out on last year’s team, which lost four of its last five games, UH was projected to bring in $5 million in ticket revenue. But with the fade, according to unaudited figures, it finished at about $4.2 million, the shortfall a contributor to a projected $2.3 million deficit for the just-completed fiscal year and an accumulated net deficit of $11.4 million since 2002.
This season the projection was for football ticket sales to generate $4.7 million, but both that and the size of the anticipated deficit for the current fiscal year may have to be revised given recent trends, officials acknowledge. The San Diego State game figures to determine just how much.
Even before the opening kickoff at Southern California, UH was staring at a projected $512,000 department deficit for the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2013, in part because it will have to absorb several costs associated with the fallout from the ill-fated Stevie Wonder concert, including legal fees.
How much issues surrounding the Wonder blunder have impacted the gate is anybody’s guess. Throw in live TV for Nevada, fights in the stands, etc., and the combined turnout for UH’s two home games so far (Lamar and Nevada), 58,013, is the lowest since 2006.
And the next home opponent, in fact the only one until Nov. 10, is New Mexico on Oct. 13. Even in the best of times, the Lobos haven’t been much of a draw at Aloha Stadium. And, at 2-3, this is not one of the better ones.
Except for Boise State, none of the teams remaining on UH’s home schedule — Nevada-Las Vegas and South Alabama are the others — pack much in the way of box-office punch. The Broncos’ appeal will be limited if UH isn’t competitive against the road opponents that precede it, Colorado State and Fresno State.
The Warriors have enough to contend with on the field without being concerned about the athletic department checkbook, of course. As the belt gets tightened, there are enough people around UH that will feel the squeeze and do the worrying for them.
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
