Once upon a distant time the University of Hawaii kicked off its home football games at 7:30 p.m. — and even 8 p.m. — at Aloha Stadium.

Right up until the fans complained loud and often about getting home at — or after — midnight.

Screeching phone calls, longer games and overwhelming data from a series of surveys prompted UH to roll back the kickoffs to 7 p.m. and, then, finally, the more familiar 6:05 p.m. more than a decade ago.

So, what in Halawa, are the Rainbow Warriors and Army West Point doing as college football’s Late Late Show on Saturday night with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff? This on senior night, when things traditionally run late anyway?

What we have here is UH biting the bullet, chomping down on it hard, too, in order to be a good Mountain West Conference partner, even as it flies in the face of its own immediate interests.

The switch is to accommodate the CBS Sports Network, which, UH said, requested the late start. CBS also has the 4 p.m. San Diego State-Brigham Young game that precedes the UH-Army game. Meaning if the Aztecs and Cougars run long or into overtime, UH’s kickoff could be further delayed.

For this not insignificant accommodation of its final regular-season game, UH receives well, zilch. CBS is a primary TV partner of the MWC and, like ESPN, can seek changes in game times or dates.

CBS also prevailed upon UH to change the time of its season opener against Arizona, moving kickoff to a scorching 4:30 p.m. August start in humid 88-degree temperatures. What should have been the biggest crowd of the season until San Diego State, barely topped 20,000.

But, under the terms of UH’s 2011 membership agreement in joining the MWC, conference agreements dictate the TV terms and the school does not share in the conference revenue pot unless the shares of all 11 other teams exceed $2.3 million each.

Currently, the other 11 MWC teams each receive approximately $1.1 million in TV revenue and Boise State, which has a carve out deal, gets an extra $1.8 million, adding up to $2.9 overall.

But, UH does get to keep its $2.5 million local rights fees from Spectrum.

So, basically, the deal is that UH risks losing a portion of its live gate for no additional compensation and a meager television audience.

It might have been somewhat mitigated had the game started at a more reasonable hour that appeals to mainland viewers. Instead its 9:30 p.m. Pacific time and 12:30 a.m. Eastern time kickoff comes when not a whole lot of TV sets are on and ends when some folks are waking up for the NFL.

Not to mention the fact that the CBS Sports Network is a premium channel of some cable networks (different from the CBS basic channel) unmetered and doesn’t have the reach of ESPN or ESPN2.

All of which underlines a situation that begs for changes more accommodating to UH as the MWC negotiates for its next TV deal. The current contract expires in July, and a new one, expected to start in 2020-21, has yet to be announced.

A regular-season finale like this should be more of a showcase game for UH, not one consigned to a place among the early-morning infomercials.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.