University of Hawaii, Spectrum agree to drop pay per view for football for 2025

HONOLULU — With an eye on the future of media rights, the University of Hawaii and Spectrum Networks announced Monday a new one-year deal sans a major component of their partnership for the last 20-plus years — football pay-per-view.

UH said it expects its viewership for its primary money-making sport to climb as seven of its games for 2025 that were not selected for national TV are to be shown live on Spectrum Sports.

“It is about accessibility and it is about exposure,” UH Athletic Director Matt Elliott told Spectrum News after leading a press conference at the Wong Hospitality Room in the Stan Sheriff Center alongside UH President Wendy Hensel and football coach Timmy Chang.

“The value you’re going to be able to demonstrate in future deals will be based on the track record you establish now,” he said.

Under the previous deal that was agreed upon in 2020, UH was to receive upward of $3.2 million per year in rights fees with football pay-per-view a key part of the package for Spectrum. The parties did not disclose financial details for the new 11-month deal before the Mountain West announces a media rights deal in 2026, but Elliott said over 90 live events were to be televised by Spectrum.

The football games that will be broadcast on Spectrum Sports are: Sam Houston on Sept. 6; Portland State on Sept. 13; Fresno State on Sept. 20; Utah State on Oct. 11; Colorado State on Oct. 18; San Diego State on Nov. 8; and Wyoming on Nov. 29. All but the CSU game are at home.

“This partnership with the University of Hawaii expands access to more fans and brings exceptional value to our customers,” said Dan Schmidt, senior director and coordinating producer of Spectrum Sports, in a news release. “We are looking forward to an unforgettable season, delivering high-quality sports coverage that will allow viewers to catch all the excitement.”

The change comes a little more than a month after Elliott started as the UH athletic director. He thanked Schmidt and Stella Moon, public relations manager of Spectrum Networks in Los Angeles, who were present.

Elliott acknowledged it was among his top priorities since July 1. He said he turned to his legal background to study contract language as well as his time as an associate athletic director at UCLA “being in the room on a number of our media rights deals or watching what our conferences were doing — it gave me the at least sort of the background to look at this and say, ‘Okay, if this happens, what does this mean?’”

Elliott said he expects that the Mountain West’s 2026 national media rights agreement will encompass all of UH football and leave no room for pay-per-view.

“I don’t think pay-per-view will be a part of anything going forward,” Elliott said, noting another announcement Monday that the UFC is headed away from ESPN pay-per-view and to Paramount/CBS. “That’s not where we’re moving in sports and in television.”

He said he was hopeful that attendance at the 15,194-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex would not drop by establishing “momentum” as a brand. At various points during the press conference, Elliott, Hensel and Chang used the new department slogan of “Our team, Hawaii’s team.”

UH issued an average of 12,962 tickets in 2024.

Spectrum Sports (previously Oceanic Time Warner) has been the full-time home for UH sports since 2011, but it previously partnered with then-rights-holder KFVE to produce pay-per-view broadcasts primarily in football but also in women’s volleyball and men’s basketball.

Before pay-per-view was introduced for the 2002 season, football games on KFVE/KHNL were tape-delayed so as not to reduce attendance at Aloha Stadium. Fans on the neighbor islands were offered the pay-per-view package at a discount.

Former KHNL/KFVE general manager John Fink was brought in as a special media rights advisor for UH Athletics over negotiations of the last several months and attended Monday’s press conference.

He feels that pay-per-view had its time, but it has passed.

“The money that came in from pay-per-view allowed KFVE and then Spectrum to pay the rights fees that UH needed to make their media (package) work,” Fink said.

“We have come to the point in time, in the year 2025, well, that’s not necessarily the way to go, and that’s not what’s happening with streaming and all the other things that are happening,” he added.

Chang, who was a UH quarterback at the time that pay-per-view was first introduced, said when he told his quarterbacks Monday, “They called it a ‘game-changer,’” Chang said.

UH now has ability to livestream events like baseball and softball that are not produced by Spectrum, but hasn’t decided which to do, a UH spokesperson said.

It is to be determined how people on the Continental U.S. can watch UH football games on Spectrum Sports for the coming season. In the past, an app, Team1 Sports, was available for free viewing, but it was not widely known.

Elliott said UH is in the process of seeking a third party to distribute the game on the Mainland by the time of the Sam Houston game on Sept. 6.

“We play that late-night, special game, and to get it to all the fans out there, I mean, we can really become America’s darling team,” Chang said.

Note: This story has been updated with details and quotes.

Correction: A previous version of the story had an incorrect day of the week for the announcement.

Disclaimer: Spectrum Sports and Spectrum News are both owned by Charter Communications.

Brian McInniscovers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.He can be reached atbrian.mcinnis@charter.com.