With fans not allowed to attend its home football games this season, the University of Hawaii will feel their absence in decibels and dollars at 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium.
The “loud, imposing atmosphere,” that head coach Todd Graham had initially hoped to have for his inaugural season with the Rainbow Warriors will be missing as will approximately $1 million or more in potential ticket revenue as UH observes governmental guidelines on social gatherings.
“The university supports the county and state measures implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” athletic director David Matlin said in a statement announcing the policy on Sunday. “These are unprecedented times and we must take these types of unprecedented steps to protect our community.”
UH’s announcement said, “Spectators at organized sports events are considered as social gatherings under Honolulu City and County COVID-19 guidelines, and at the current and pending tiers such gatherings are limited to five individuals.”
UH’s season opener at Fresno State Saturday will be without spectators, a spokesman said, and, so far, only one of UH’s four road opponents, Wyoming, has said it will allow fans at its games. A Wyoming spokesman said 7,000 will be allowed at 29,181-seat War Memorial Stadium for the Oct. 30 game with UH.
The Rainbow Warriors open the home portion of their schedule Nov. 7 against New Mexico and are listed to play four of their truncated eight-game schedule in Halawa.
Attendance averaged 20,520 per game in 2019 and UH took in more than $3 million in ticket revenue for an eight-game home schedule.
This year, UH and Aloha Stadium officials had been looking at several social distancing attendance models from 5% on up, if permitted to allow spectators.
In pre-pandemic days, when he first took the UH job, Graham recalled the high decibel levels when playing the Rainbow Warriors as a visiting coach and looked forward to them now coaching the home team. “My deal is wanting the teams coming in here to feel that.”
Matlin said, “The best way to support the football team and UH Athletics is watch the Warriors play on pay-per-view.”
Six UH games are scheduled for pay-per view. Its TV rights agreement with Spectrum calls for the school to make a minimum of seven games available for PPV in order to earn the full $2,915,000 payment or face a reduced payout.
But with no fans allowed in Aloha Stadium, if PPV sales exceed certain thresholds UH could recoup some or all of those funds.
UH said fans residing outside Hawaii may view the games free of charge on the Team1Sports app, which is available on mobile devices and most OTT devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire, etc. Due to geo-blocking restrictions, the games will not be available on a desktop or laptop computer, UH said.
