The Hawaii Bowl long ago gave up playing on Christmas Day because it didn’t want to buck Santa Claus.

And, now, it might move off of Christmas Eve after battling something more powerful, the National Football League.

A second consecutive thrashing in the ratings by the NFL and the prospect of going up against a Sunday full of pro football games in 2017 has ESPN Events, the owner and operator of the Hawaii Bowl, studying the calendar and evaluating its options for future dates.

The University of Hawaii’s 52-35 shootout victory over Middle Tennessee State gave viewers of the Hawaii Bowl plenty of action over the course of the 3-hour, 46-minute game.

The victory and national exposure it brought nearly blew up head coach Nick Rolovich’s phone. “Two hundred messages,” Rolovich said.

But going head-to-head in the same time slot with the Cincinnati Bengals and Houston Texans was a killer.

The NFL Network game drew 6.3 million viewers according to Nielsen ratings while the Hawaii Bowl had approximately 1.4 million, ranking second this season for the ’Bows, who had 2.14 million viewers for the loss at Michigan.

This year’s Hawaii Bowl was the lowest viewership for the 15-year old bowl game in at least a decade.

“The NFL is so dominant that whenever you go head to head with the NFL it is not a winning proposition,” acknowledged Pete Derzis, senior vice president of ESPN Events.

The Hawaii Bowl record for viewership — 4.4 million — was set by UH and Notre Dame in 2008, back in a time when the game did not have to go up against the NFL.

The NBA, on occasion, but not regularly the mighty NFL.

But recently the way the calendar has broken and the creeping expansion of NFL across the week, including Thursday night and Saturday games, has given the Hawaii Bowl few windows of exclusivity and a lot of headaches.

Consider that the Bengals-Texans game, even though it was played on a Saturday, was still titled “Thursday Night Football” for what ShowBuzzDaily said were “contractual reasons.”

Meanwhile, there are new challenges ahead. Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday in 2017 and Monday in 2018.

This while ESPN renews its quest to land a title sponsor for the Hawaii Bowl, which hasn’t had one since Sheraton’s name, which had been attached for 11 years, came off the marquee following the 2013 season.

“We’re aware of the challenges,” Derzis said. “ESPN programming is looking at all the options for the play dates next year around the calendar and the NFL schedule. There will be a lot of discussion in terms of where to place the games. We want to bring the best value for all the folks involved.”

The Hawaii Bowl, however, is just one piece of a vast postseason puzzle, thanks to the bowl game glut. ESPN owns and operates 13 bowls and between it and ABC they show 33 bowl games from Dec. 17 through Dec. 31.

What ESPN does with the Hawaii Bowl will also impact its other holiday property here, basketball’s Diamond Head Classic, which wraps around the bowl game. This year the DHC was held Dec. 22, 23 and 25.

The Hawaii Bowl began as a Christmas Day game in 2002, but that slot lasted just two years before the shift to Dec. 24. With the exception of 2007, when it was held on Dec. 23, the bowl has been played on Christmas Eve.

Where it will wind up next remains to be seen, but escaping the NFL’s lengthening shadow will take some doing.

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