Had Hawaii News Now come up with an offer of at least $2.3 million per year for the University of Hawaii’s athletic TV and pay-per-view rights, it would have been considered for the contract, the school said.

UH announced a six-year extension of Oceanic Time Warner Cable’s contract Friday initially worth at least $2.3 million per year and escalating to $2,539,386 at the agreement’s conclusion June 30, 2020. UH must make at least seven football games a year available to Oceanic and the cable operator must air at least 60 UH events per year, according to terms of the contract.

HNN general manager Rick Blangiardi greeted the announcement of the extension with a statement saying, "we are extremely disappointed and saddened to hear this news as Hawaii News Now and KFVE would have been proud and honored to have submitted an alternative proposal for (UH) to consider."

Blangiardi also said he would have ended pay-per-view and shown UH football road games free.

KHNL and KFVE had been partners with UH until 2011, when Oceanic became the rights holder.

Oceanic’s exclusive four-month window for negotiation ended the day the contract extension was announced.

In response to questions from the Star-Advertiser to Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple, who signed the Oceanic contract on Feb. 13, the school said, "anyone was free, at any time, to submit an offer. If a real offer had been submitted, we would have given it consideration."

UH said (HNN) knew, through informal conversation, that it needed at least $2.3 million a year. UH said, "Hawaii News Now expressed some interest, but informal discussions indicated that the $2.3 million offer could not be matched and meeting the bottom line had to be the first priority."

In addition to HNN, the school said, "there were expressions of interest (from other parties) no firm offers or firm proposals."

UH said Oceanic’s offer did not come with an expiration date.