UH baseball revenue falls
$109,000 short of projections

Slightly less than 49,000 fans
attended games, the fewest ever
at Rainbow Stadium

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

The University of Hawaii baseball program not only fell $109,000 short of its 1997 projections, but tickets distributed have dropped nearly 100,000 since 1992.

UH associate athletic director Jim Donovan said yesterday that it was too early to tell whether the revenue loss from baseball would drag the athletic department into the red for the fiscal year.

But he did say the football team would break close to even, while the men's basketball, and men's and women's volleyball teams would finish in the black. Baseball and women's basketball are in the red.

What's particularly alarming for baseball is the drop in attendance since the Rainbows distributed 208,378 tickets in 1992. That successful season, the Rainbows finished 40-7 at home and sold out 43 of those games.

The Rainbows haven't had a sellout since their Easter Tournament game with Wichita State in March of 1995. In 39 home dates this year, tickets distributed were 108,537, for an average of 2,783 a game.

This year's turnstile numbers are even greater cause for concern. Hawaii drew only 48,916 fans for an average of 1,254 a game. It's the lowest total since Rainbow Stadium opened its doors in 1984 and is down 30 percent from a year ago.

"All programs cycle up and down over time," Donovan said. "For example, baseball, as indicated by the decline in revenues and attendance figures, shows that it's in a downward cycle.

"However, with how the team finished the last half of the season, and with some of the players we expect to have, there are several indicators that next year may be the start of an up cycle."

UH head coach Les Murakami certainly believes that. After a 5-22 start this year, Hawaii came back to win 12 of its last 19 games to finish 22-34 overall.

"No question that winning is the key to having fans come to the games," Murakami said. "But I feel we'll be improved over next year."

Despite the five-year decline, there is still some strong financial ties to the UH program in the local business community. When Murakami faced $50,000 in budget cuts before the start of this season, he received some much-needed help from GTE.

The local telephone company gave UH $50,000 to help with the equipment costs. This year, Donovan's projection for the UH team was $545,000. The team generated only $436,000, missing the mark by approximately 20 percent.

"We'll try to keep the 1998 projections similar to this year's," Donovan said. "We'll know more in June where the athletic department finished for the fiscal year. It could be just in the black or barely in the red."