When the Pro Bowl got underway Sunday at 2 p.m., there were still thousands of empty seats among the 50,000 in Aloha Stadium.

At the time, I figured the tailgate parties must be really great. Or the game wasn’t a sellout like the NFL had told us a couple of days earlier. But people were still streaming in at a steady pace … and they continued to do so for almost the entire first quarter.

It wasn’t because they didn’t want to be in the seats for which they’d paid upwards of $100 apiece. They were standing in long lines, waiting their turn for NFL-mandated security screenings rivaling those of TSA.

And as for tailgating, many never had the chance to eat the food they brought because grillin’ time was spent in gridlock.

Donald Martinez left his home in Waipahu early, parked in Aiea at 9:30 a.m. and walked a couple of blocks to the stadium. The plan was to meet the rest of his group coming in from Makakilo and they would tailgate. So he waited. And waited … for four hours.

“They got caught in the traffic and ended up at Ford Island,” Martinez said. “At least now we have food for our Super Bowl party.”

Once inside, he paid NFL prices for food: $28 for chicken strips and fries, a hot dog and a large soda.

Martinez could be counted as a lucky one, since he got to his seat in time for the start of the game. Two of his group never even made it at all — beaten down by hours in the traffic they turned around and drove home.

For many, it didn’t matter how well they planned and how early they got close to the stadium. “My daughter met with friends at Aiea Bowl (about 2 miles from Aloha Stadium) at noon,” said Keone Kuniyoshi of Mililani. “Never made it into the stadium by the time the game started.”

A lack of coordination has been the biggest complaint.

“It seems so many (entities) were running this event and no one knew what the other was doing, and they all seem afraid to admit error,” Martinez said. “The State (Department of Transportation) blames the Stadium Authority, the Stadium Authority blames the NFL and the NFL is quiet because they are more concerned with the Super Bowl. No wonder the traffic was a mess. Things were a mess at the top and fell down the tree.”

It was like falling behind early in a game and never getting the momentum. It didn’t help that the stadium had 1,100 fewer parking spaces than usual due to rail construction.

“We opened up 45 minutes early and there was tremendous backlog,” said stadium manager Scott Chan, who has spent the past two days in meetings that included NFL parking and traffic consultants who worked with his staff on game day and leading up to it. “For whatever reason we could never recapture it dying down and getting people in quickly and pushing them out to other sites quickly (when the stadium spaces were filled).”

Big crowds always bring traffic challenges for sports venues, everywhere. Judging from the volume and variety of complaints, this was the worst jam for a game at Aloha Stadium since Hawaii hosted USC in 1999 and people were still trying to get into the facility after halftime.

This comes at a bad time for the state. In December, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team refused to play its scheduled match at the stadium, claiming the turf was unsafe. Now, with the NFL on the verge of deciding where to stage the Pro Bowl next year, Aloha Stadium gets another black mark. Again, it’s debatable how much of it is deserved.

It doesn’t matter who is to blame — even if it’s mostly the NFL itself — the bottom line is paying customers couldn’t get to their seats in time for the start, through no fault of their own. And if the NFL really wants to move the game from Hawaii, it will use that as part of its justification.

Even if it is here next year, Martinez said his sixth Pro Bowl was his last.

“It’s not worth it. I’ve been to Raiders and Patriots games on the mainland and never had this hassle. It ruins the game-day experience,” he said. “Even in 2007 UH games (two sellouts and three other games of more than 40,000 fans) were never this unorganized.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.