Recently, the University of Hawaii athletic department and Aloha Stadium began negotiating a new agreement for its football games.

“Negotiating” being a relative term here.

Because, as earnest and collaborative as the talks have usually been, both parties know that under the present model substantive change isn’t going to happen in a 42-year relationship that is a curious rarity in the circles in which the Rainbow Warriors compete.

Though the stadium was largely conceived and built as a home for the ’Bows, among the 12-member Mountain West Conference, UH and San Diego State are the only schools that do not either own, operate or control the revenue streams in the facilities where they play their home games.

For one thing, it isn’t like UH has the leverage of playing its games somewhere else. What is it going to say, “OK, we’ll go play on campus before 2,000 fans at the T.C. Ching Complex or work a deal with Farrington High, where we can seat 4,000?”

For another, as much as the 11-member Stadium Authority, which includes three former Rainbow Warrior football players and several Manoa graduates, works to provide UH a break where it can, its hands are effectively shackled from above when it comes to major relief.

The appointed Authority is charged by state directive with seeing that the aging facility pays it own way, meaning that since it does not receive state general funds it must underwrite operations as well as salaries from the revenue it takes in from rent, parking, concessions, advertising and other avenues.

What largess the stadium has received from the state in recent years has been largely confined to addressing the most pressing of the mounting health and safety needs. And given the deterioration, the tab is rapidly escalating.

While there has been some tweaking in revenue areas with UH able to purchase reserved parking stalls for re-sale and some VIP booth and field seating made available, the last major change in the contract came a decade ago. That was when the Authority, after a lengthy process, succeeded in waiving the rental fee of as much as $500,000 a year that UH had been paying.

Since 2007 UH has just been responsible for covering so-called out-of-pocket expenses such as electricity, security and cleanup, which can still run $85,000-$100,000 per game.

To a succession of UH athletic directors paying for cleanup, that has been a particular sore point since the school does not share in much of what is cleaned up, the concessions.

Years ago an athletic director went so far as refusing to pay for the picking up of the refuse until higher powers reminded him who paid his salary.

A year ago the Authority gifted UH with a check for $150,000 representing 10 percent of the stadium’s share of the field naming rights revenue. But the non-renewal of that contract was replaced by a less lucrative one.

While UH can sell field-level banner and portable advertising, the more substantial permanent inventory up above is sold by an out-of-state contractor that shares in the proceeds. And that contract has several years left to run.

Someday, maybe, a new stadium will rise in place of the rust palace, bringing with it enlightened change to this curious equation.

Meanwhile, UH and its landlord will continue to meet in their annual exercise in futility.