UH athletics could lose $2 million

The University of Hawaii is staring at the possibility of a $2 million athletic department deficit for the current fiscal year, officials acknowledged.

“We’re looking at $2 million — or just below — somewhere in that ballpark,” athletic director Jim Donovan said of the fiscal year that closes June 30. “Hopefully, under. That’s what we’re trying to shoot for,” Donovan said.

In November, when Donovan appeared before the UH Board of Regents’ Committee on University Audits, the projection was for a $982,798 deficit.

But, at the time, Donovan, citing rapidly declining football ticket revenue, told regents, “I have to caution it could be worse.”

It was. Football revenue fell nearly $1.2 million short of the $5 million originally projected as the Warriors, who were predicted to repeat as Western Athletic Conference champions, lost four of their last five games and spiraled to a 6-7 finish amid thinning crowds.

That plunge, a subsequent $600,000 negotiated buyout of the final year of head football coach Greg McMackin’s five-year contract, forfeiture of $503,000 in Western Athletic Conference earnings and the cost of replacing Boise State on the 2011 football schedule are major contributors to the increased deficit, officials said.

In addition, men’s basketball ticket revenue came in 8 percent below projections, according to unaudited figures, and the fear is that men’s volleyball also will take a significant hit.

This comes after UH finished $858,000 in the black for the fiscal year that closed June 30, 2011, only the second plus-side finish in a decade.

Audit committee chairman James Lee had lauded the result as “phenomenal given the economic conditions”

Donovan forecast an improvement in 2013. “For the next fiscal year (2013), our preliminary projections are — assuming we are able to still do our pay-per-view deal — for a break-even budget,” Donovan said.

UH is awaiting word of whether it will be allowed to retain its lucrative local TV rights in the move to the Mountain West Conference. The TV package has been worth approximately $2.5 million a year to UH.

But, in the meantime, the return to a deficit for 2012 could push the decade-long accumulated net deficit back above $10 million.

By running at a deficit, “the athletic department is, in effect, borrowing cash from other University of Hawaii units,” an independent auditor has told the UH Board of Regents.

The athletic department said it spends approximately $70,000 each year toward interest on the debt.