When Utah State and San Jose State last came to Aloha Stadium to play the University of Hawaii football team, they paid their own way.

When they next return in 2013 — or beyond — the Warriors might be required to pick up the tab.

Not just the seats, either, but the whole plane.

The difference? Previous trips were as members of the Western Athletic Conference and the next ones will be as Mountain West Conference members.

And, that would be the six-figure rub, should UH be held to it.

Officially, the MWC isn’t saying whether its Board of Directors, composed of member presidents, determined UH will have to pay travel subsidies for new members, "(declining) to comment on matters of internal conference business," according to a spokesman.

Unofficially, we’ve been told it would not be wrong to assume UH will have to pay the subsidies for the newcomers.

When UH sought membership in the MWC in 2010, it agreed, as a condition of membership, to underwrite travel of conference opponents here. The MWC had the leverage and UH wanted in, badly, so the Warriors took a deep breath and agreed to pull out their already tattered checkbook.

Of course, UH had been thinking more along the lines of paying for 85-90 seats, a $45,000-$75,000 tab, for each of the four teams that came over annually. What it ended up having to agree to was $150,000-$175,000 per team, depending on time zones crossed, effectively the price of a charter flight.

Meanwhile, UH receives no assistance for its mainland travel.

Part of the reasoning was that UH was coming into an existing conference and stretching the MWC boundaries by 2,500 miles, therefore it was up to the Warriors to make the existing members whole.

Fine. But with Utah State and San Jose, the situation has changed substantially. They are come-lately additions. They will be succeeding Boise State and San Diego State, joining a conference to which UH had already been welcomed and therefore knew what the geographic and financial challenges would be.

As an example of enlightened thinking, we offer you the Big West, where most UH teams in sports other than football will be heading in 2012. UH will pay travel subsidies there, too, but will pay a flat $500 per head for agreed-upon squad limits.

Moreover, UH was obligated to pay travel subsidies only for those Big West teams that were already in place when UH joined the conference. So, San Diego State, which signs on in 2013, and any future members will be on their own for travel costs to Hawaii.

As Big West commissioner Dennis Farrell correctly put it, "San Diego State was aware of that when we brought them in." The thinking being, Farrell said, "It would be a little unfair if, all of a sudden, we brought in another eight schools or something that would force Hawaii to pay travel allowances for those schools. We just didn’t think that was fair."

That’s a lesson in dollars and sense that the MWC could learn from its Big West cousins.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.