The classic understatement would be that the University of Hawaii Athletics Department has had a rotten year — or two or three — but that gives no cover to Ahahui Koa Anuenue, which has to be there with the money, in good times and bad.
Jonathan Kobayashi, sitting at the helm of AKA for close to a year, has to come up with the magic even when there’s not been much of it on the field lately, and when UH sports have been through a parade of horribles.
"We all see what we see in the news," said Kobayashi, AKA president. "It’s been a tough go; there have been a lot of challenges, and not just challenges to the university itself but within the context of the environment of NCAA Division 1 athletics, there’s a lot of uncertainty."
Historically AKA brings in $6 million annually: $4 million primarily coming through the sale of premium packages, tickets and parking; the balance comes from booster club donations, Kobayashi said. But the department has put its hopes on increasing that substantially.
The new initiatives (see Page E5 for the bullet points) come in the context of fundraising hurdles faced by athletics nationally, and — as is happening now at AKA — fundraising offices coping with the aftermath of recession needing to reinvent themselves.
Kobayashi’s remarks came in a meeting with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial board as he was unveiling AKA’s strategy for ramping up what’s been a disappointing cash haul for the chief fundraising arm supporting UH athletics. And this is in the face of a huge budget deficit that has drained support for student athletes.
The idea, he said, is to find ways to engage more of the community in the mission, one with a fan base that’s dispirited. But Brandt Farias, AKA’s director of brand identity and marketing, added the ingredient that marketing people often keep in their back pocket: optimism. He’s seen community leaders he’s approached offer a generous check, without his even putting his hand out.
"There’s a lot of passion in the program, that’s the good news," Farias said. "People want to continue to support UH Athletics. … there’s a lot of this out there. And it’s our job now, regardless of trust issues, and wins and losses which we don’t control, to continue to market the program."
Just to recap: The UH Athletics Department is running an annual deficit projected at $3.5 million and is $11 million in the hole.That fiscal problem is compounded in the public eye through serial episodes that have not burnished the program’s standing.
There was the uproar over the way UH handled the scam pitching a bogus Stevie Wonder fundraiser concert, scandal over an NCAA investigation into the basketball program, less-than-stellar performance of the football program and turnover at the top of the department.
Ben Jay, the outgoing AD, has expressed disappointment publicly with the pace at which AKA has ramped up its revenue-generating. Last week, he seemed more philosophical about it.
"While this has not happened to the extent that I thought it could have at least initially, I see great long-term promise with some of AKA’s recently-announced initiatives," he said in an emailed response to a Star-Advertiser query. "Additionally, AKA has a strong working relationship with the University of Hawaii Foundation, which also fundraises for the Athletic Department through larger-ticket items such as the naming of facilities."
That relationship changed shortly after Kobayashi took over last February, with the adoption of a new memorandum of understanding that essentially gave AKA more autonomy and broader fundraising opportunities.
Primarily, these include "monetizing" the lower-campus athletics facilities through rentals for other uses and events. The Stan Sheriff Center is seen as a prime venue for events and concerts, while Les Murakami Stadium, Duke Kahanamoku Pool, Clarence T.C. Ching Field and the tennis complex could be hired out by non-UH clients, Kobayashi said.
Stan Sheriff rentals have been constrained by a memorandum of agreement giving the city first right of refusal over events, releasing them to UH only after the Neal Blaisdell Center can’t accommodate them. But Kobayashi said he believes there’s enough room in this agreement to drive significantly more business to the Sheriff.
The first tantalizing possibility was dangled before him just after he started in the job, when a promoter proposed a Celine Dion concert at the UH arena. It ultimately didn’t work out because of Dion’s illness and other reasons, Kobayashi said. And then, of course, visions of a "Wonder Blunder" redux, danced in everybody’s heads. But after drawing a deep breath, he knew that, going forward, this was a route for rebuilding the community connection with UH athletics.
"Automatically, in my mind I was, I didn’t want it," he admitted. "But I want it. I want it. I want us to do it and do it right and pull it off the right way.
"I think that if we can pull it off and understand that we are not promoters and understand that it’s just a venue, and we handle it that way and we do our due diligence, and we’re smart and don’t chase something that’s not there, that we can pull it off.
"And if we pull it off, I think it would be cathartic."
Setting aside the current large potholes in the road to success, the UH fundraising landscape isn’t that different from what other college development offices face. "College Sports 101," a 2009 report by the advocacy group Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, concluded that most depend on institutional transfers from general funds, student fees and state appropriations to cover major expenses.
External sources of athletics department revenue are ranked with cash contributions from alumni and others at 30 percent, ticket sales at 28 percent, payments from conferences (including television contracts and other payouts) at 17 percent and local marketing income such as in-stadium signs at 10 percent.
Contrasting that with UH is like the proverbial apples-and-oranges comparison, Jay said. Direct institutional support general funds and student fees total $9.2 million, he said — about 28 percent of the budget, leaving the rest to be generated externally. The bar is set especially high on the expense side of the UH ledger.
"We don’t have the luxury of riding a bus, or taking a two-hour plane ride for our teams to go play their games," he said. "UH pays game guarantees to our non-conference opponents in many sports to travel here to play in Hawaii, but UH is the only athletics program in NCAA Division I sports that also pays travel subsidies to our own conference member teams in the Mountain West (football) and Big West Conference (most other sports), and that comes with an additional $1.3 million in operating expense."
Nonetheless, hope springs eternal, and in summer 2013, UH adopted a sunny set of goals in a 2014-2018 athletics strategic plan. At the top of the list was the pledge to "identify and secure the revenue necessary to increase our operating budget from the current $32 million per year to a minimum of $40 million per year."
They’re a long way from reaching that hurdle, but a number of people are feeling bullish on their chances, including Jay. Nothing will turn things around like a winning season, he said, but the AKA plan should help "emotionally connect the buying public to our program."
Vince Baldemor, now executive director of Hawaii Pacific University athletics, was Kobayashi’s predecessor in the job. The challenge, he said, is to "create a culture where donations are not tied to win/loss."
"It is good for an organization to keep things fresh so AKA’s recent news to change its programs seems logical and timely," he said."You can’t go wrong when you put the customer first and listen to their concerns."
James Burns — retired judge and son of AKA’s founder, the late Gov. John A. Burns — was also the organization’s chairman. He said raising money from ticket sales has become more difficult with live television enabling more to watch from the comfort of home.
And when some season-ticket sections were made available for student fans some years ago, he said, some loyal ticket holders may have drifted away.
That being said, Burns believes there’s still a lot of Rainbow fever out there, and that, as the athletics program improves, ticket sales can rebound.
"I don’t think there’s a lessening of desire," he said. "I think people really would love to watch. If they get a good product, it will sell."
