Donovan wants sports
commission formed

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By Dave Segal
dsegal@starbulletin.com

Jim Donovan, who just finished his maiden season as executive director of the inaugural ConAgra Foods Hawaii Bowl, believes the time has come for Hawaii to form a sports commission to handle the increasing influx of sports coming into the state.

"There's a lot of potential for sports in this state and I think we need to start looking at it strategically," Donovan said yesterday at the Rotary Club of Honolulu meeting at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

"There needs to be a sports authority or a sports commission because all of this has been done literally one step at a time. It's grown to the point where we have an awful lot of nationally and regionally televised sporting events and they all are working independently of each other right now."

Donovan ticked off a list of events that Hawaii has hosted in recent years and then mentioned several that his "crystal ball" tells him could play out in Hawaii in the future. Those sports he mentioned were minor league or winter league baseball, ice hockey, an indoor women's volleyball league, Arena Football I and X-Games. He also said he possibly could see the Women's National Basketball Association, National Basketball Association, Olympics and soccer here.

Rex Johnson, executive director of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said Donovan's recommendation of a sports commission has merit and that the HTA is exploring the idea.

"We have a sports department over here but no committee that handles sports," Johnson said. "We're looking into the situation now about whether a sports authority might be necessary. We now handle the Pro Bowl, PGA golf, the triathlon over in Kona and some other sporting events. There's also the University of Hawaii sports going on. Then, you have things like the ConAgra game. There's an awful lot of sporting events going on and whether it should be centralized or not, that's what we've got to figure out."

Johnson said that a sports authority likely would try to encourage more sporting events in the state and facilitate incoming events by looking at site venues and doing marketing among other things.

Donovan said 45 Hawaii companies pitched in to help sponsor the Hawaii Bowl with either cash or trade. Donovan said more than $60,000 was raised for nonprofits in the community. And he said that 35,500 tickets were issued for the game with 31,500 attending.