The Hawaii Tourism Authority is on a roll. That helps make what most people think of as impossible a potential opportunity to others.

The HTA secured the APEC international business and political confab last year, and pulled the Pro Bowl out of the fire last month. So Mike McCartney didn’t laugh when I floated the seemingly insane idea of somehow getting at least a piece of college football’s new national championship playoff.

The rational mind says geography and facilities make this a non-starter. So I’m nuts, right?

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” the HTA chief said Thursday.

Then McCartney reminded me that we have 10 million seats.

Huh? Aloha Stadium’s got 50,000, and that’s probably a problem. The biggest college football games are usually played in stadiums with capacity of at least 75K — like the Superdome, where Alabama beat LSU in January for the national championship.

No, he’s talking about airline seats, per year.

McCartney’s point is Hawaii’s primacy as a tourism destination makes it a viable contender to host any big-time event — including the hugest sports contests. Maybe not right now; he understands sports enough to know that Aloha Stadium, in its current state, isn’t quite what college football’s decision-makers have in mind for a national semifinal or title game.

“We have to get a look at the requirements. It’s too early to say we can’t do it. There’s no question we should take a serious look at it,” he said. “If not for this year, for in the future.”

I like McCartney’s willingness to go for it. At the very least, inquiries will let us know exactly where we stand and what would need to be done, facilities-wise.

It’s way past time for serious conversation about significant renovation to Aloha Stadium or building a new facility. Hawaii might be in a more realistic position as a player in bidding for hosting rights if the issue had been addressed properly when it should have, decades ago.

Those rights will go to the highest bidder for the college football semis and championship. McCartney said if the state pulls together it can put together an attractive package, and maybe a great TV deal outweighs obvious attendance concerns. But does our distance from the mainland and the stadium make it a no-go from the beginning?

“We have to put ourselves forward because if we don’t no one else will. We have to take the initiative,” McCartney said.

That’s what Lenny Klompus did in 1993, when he was chief operating officer of the Aloha Bowl. He proposed what in effect would be a “plus-three” format, with a final four played in Hawaii after the big bowl games (this was pre-BCS). Not everyone laughed, and Klompus proved he could pull off a college football bowl doubleheader a few years later, adding the Oahu Bowl.

“I think we had a great proposal,” Klompus said Thursday. “We had the state and some people in the NCAA supporting us.”

But it was ahead of its time.

Maybe no time is the right time for this in Hawaii. Maybe it is crazy. But McCartney’s going to check it out; it’s his job to do so.

Hey, who knows? Hosting the Pro Bowl started as a wild idea back in the ’70s.