The University of Hawaii’s Christmas Eve appearance in the Hawaii Bowl could be one of the Rainbow Warriors’ few showings on ESPN for several years.

That’s because the Mountain West Conference, which owns UH’s league TV rights, is said to have reached an agreement to have Fox Sports join the CBS Sports Network, replacing ESPN, as a conference media partner beginning July 1, according to the Sports Business Journal.

An MWC statement said no agreement has been signed and negotiations are continuing. UH also disputed the report and asked that questions regarding the negotiations and impact on UH be referred to MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson, whose office did not return calls, texts or emails.

ESPN was the MWC’s original partner when the league was formed in 1999 and has been involved for the past seven years. ESPN was the primary TV partner when UH was in the Western Athletic Conference until 2012.

ESPN and ESPN2 have been available in more homes than Fox’s FS1 and FS2 or the CBS Sports Network.

UH has appeared regularly on ESPN since 1985 and its Hawaii Bowl game against Brigham Young will mark UH’s fourth appearance on ESPN this season. UH also appeared on ESPN platforms four times in 2018 and has had as many as five games on the network in a season.

If the Fox deal goes through, UH could still appear on ESPN in a bowl or championship game or as a road opponent for a team whose conference is contracted with the network, but the opportunities would likely be significantly fewer.

According to SBJ, the conference is to receive approximately $35 million — $20 million from CBS and $15 million from Fox — annually for its football and basketball rights. The length of the deal was not announced.

It was not immediately clear how much, if any, UH, which is a football-only member of the conference, might share in the new revenues. As part of its 2011 membership agreement UH retains the revenue from its local agreement with Spectrum but only shares in the overall conference pot if the revenues of all 11 other members exceed the local fees.

UH is expected to receive at least $2.54 million this year from Spectrum, per its contract. This summer, Thompson said he expected any new agreement would keep in place the carve-out deals the league has with UH and Boise State.

Boise State has been receiving one share (approximately $1.1 million) of the conference pot plus an additional $1.8 million “bonus” for a total of $2.9 million per season.

Under the current contract, UH can be required to change game times or dates to suit conference TV partners.