UH cashing in Pay-per-view appears to be paying off already for the University of Hawaii.
on TV sales
An estimated 12,000
pay-per-view subscribers
should bring in upward
of $400,000 in salesBy Dave Reardon
dreardon@starbulletin.comTonight's season-opening football game against Eastern Illinois will be televised live in at least 12,000 homes and at 30 commercial venues throughout the state. Going with a conservative estimate, that means at least $400,000 for UH through pay-per-view sales.
A crowd of 36,000 to 37,000 is expected to attend the game at Aloha Stadium. Although that is well short of a sellout at the 50,000-seat facility, UH officials do not think the first-time availability of the game on live TV on Oahu is affecting sales.
"It's very successful so far," said UH Vice President Paul Costello, who negotiated the deal with KHNL-KFVE and Oceanic Cablevision. "The thing that really underscores this for me is that the fans are still going to the game. We sold more season tickets than last year. There's great excitement about going to the game. Pay-per-view is not (decreasing) gate receipts."
New Athletic Director Herman Frazier is also pleased with the early returns.
"We all know this is new. I've had some preliminary discussions with KFVE and Oceanic, and I think they're pretty pleased with it," Frazier said. "Obviously, this was an unknown. It looks like it's turning into a real positive. It's an indicator of the strength of our football program and the universal support for the university throughout the state. It's great to know the gate will be prosperous and pay-per-view will, also."
Because of the weak economy, UH had to sell its TV rights package for $700,000 a year compared with $1.3 million the year before. That made the success of pay-per-view sales -- of which the school gets a sizable cut -- critical.
Officials at Oceanic declined to disclose how many subscriptions have been sold, but a source said upwards of 12,000 digital installations have been made so people can watch the game live. No breakdown was available of how many installations are for individual games on Oahu ($12.95), the seven-game package on Oahu ($75), individual games on neighbor islands ($5), or the package for neighbor-island viewers ($25).
The school gets 70 percent of money generated by pay-per-view sales, up to $1 million each year. Anything over that amount is divided evenly among UH, KHNL/KFVE and Oceanic.
Lonnie Shupp, Oceanic's senior director of programming and production, said the company had to hire more people to meet the demand of requests for pay-per-view hook-ups.
"The majority of the sales on all islands are for the (season) package," Shupp said. "The individual sales, my guess, will be impulse buys as the time draws near to certain games."
In addition to the statewide TV audience, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service will show the game. Tom Weber of AFRTS estimates 800,000 U.S. troops and sailors worldwide will see it.
Aloha Stadium ticket box manager Ainslee Paki said yesterday that around 28,000 season-ticket packages have been distributed, and 6,209 individual tickets for tonight's game were sold by the close of business yesterday. He expected another two or three thousand walk-up sales today.
Two years ago, Hawaii opened at home against Division I-AA Portland State -- an opponent similar in caliber to Eastern Illinois. The Warriors, coming off a 9-4 season, attracted a crowd announced as a 50,000 sellout (which was closer in actuality to 45,000).
The announced attendance for last year's Aloha Stadium opener against Rice was 35,443 (tickets distributed). But that game was played under cloudy skies, literally and figuratively. Poor weather hurt walk-up sales. It was only a week after a UH loss to Nevada and 19 days after Sept. 11.
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