The Univ. of Hawaii's athletic department said that it "has heard the vocal concerns of its longtime football season-ticket holders and, as a result, will announce a new pricing structure" for the '14 season, according to Ferd Lewis of the HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER. UH AD Ben Jay said that the price of season-tickets renewals "would not rise for at least one year, but that the cost for new season tickets would likely be hiked" for '14. UH said that the last time prices "were raised in a majority of the areas at Aloha Stadium" was '04. UH is hoping that a "strong early home schedule, featuring Pac-12 opponents Washington and Oregon State in the first two games ... will help boost crowds after three consecutive years of declining season-ticket sales." Football season-ticket sales "are a major source of income for the 21-team athletic department," accounting for about 71% of all football ticket revenue and, "in a very good year," nearly 12% of department revenue overall. But with "three consecutive losing seasons, season-ticket sales fell to a decade low of 18,354" in '13 and revenues to $2.42M, a "major contributor" to the more than $1M deficit the department says it is currently running. Jay earlier this year "had investigated the possibility of closing the upper deck at Aloha Stadium for low turnout UH games." But that was "abandoned since it would have displaced approximately 1,100 season-ticket holders who account for 3,225 seats" (HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER, 4/20).
