If you want a glimpse of how complicated and convoluted the future of University of Hawaii football on television could become here, keep an eye on the Warriors’ game at Nevada-Las Vegas.

If you can get it.

And, at the moment, you might not be able to — even as a next-day broadcast — unless you are a DirecTV or Oceanic digital subscriber.

Whether that changes between now and the Sept. 17 kickoff might be the best indicator yet of just how smooth — or bumpy — the road ahead could become when UH joins the Mountain West Conference in 2012.

Oceanic had hoped to include the UH-UNLV game in its pay-per-view lineup, but there has been no announcement yet and MWC commissioner Craig Thompson’s recent blast at Time Warner on the West Coast doesn’t portend much hope for an immediate breakthrough.

Dismayed by Time Warner’s alleged intransigence in adding The Mtn. (The Mountain), the MWC’s regional network, to its offerings in San Diego for six years, Thompson told the San Diego Union Tribune, "It is a monopoly and it is frustrating. It is frustrating for (San Diego State) fans and frustrating for us as administrators."

A spokesman for The Mtn., which is owned jointly by CBS Sports Network and Comcast, said "Hawaii is (included) in the broad discussions" about an agreement with Time Warner in San Diego.

The Mtn. said it will carry the UH-UNLV game and simulcast it on CBS College Sports (digital channel 247). But Oceanic Time Warner does not currently carry The Mtn. here and lists CBS College Sports on its digital lineup, not basic cable.

That situation will become crucial next year when UH joins the MWC, whose TV partners, The Mtn. and CBS Sports Network, get the picks on all Warriors home and conference games and will not be obligated to simulcast them.

Even if The Mtn. and CBS Sports Network passed on picking up UH games, any carryover acrimony with Time Warner could keep them from releasing enough — or, indeed, any — games for there to even be a football pay-per-view or local package.

That point is not lost on UH, which is guaranteed $2.3 million per year by Oceanic for its local sports rights and would likely have to renegotiate a new, less lucrative deal if it has no football inventory to offer.

When UH signed a membership agreement with the MWC in March, the school agreed to grant the MWC, "all local, regional and international TV broadcast rights." In return, the MWC pledged to "make reasonable efforts to negotiate a local area ‘carve out’ for Hawaii," but noted that it wasn’t obligated to guarantee them.

That’s a far cry from the flexibility UH has enjoyed in the Western Athletic Conference, where, once ESPN passed on UH games, the Warriors were allowed to turn them over to free TV or pay-per-view.

This year, ESPN has picked only two of seven UH home games.

Oceanic officials did not immediately respond to questions about the UNLV game or availability of The Mtn. in Hawaii. But Hayne Ellis, spokesman for The Mtn., said, "they (Time Warner in San Diego) have a deal sitting on their desk. We’re just waiting to hear back."

That answer figures to be the loudest statement yet about UH’s football TV future here.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com.