HONOLULU — K5 The Home Team, in conjunction with partners Oceanic Time Warner Cable and the University of Hawai’i Athletics Department, have announced an expanded pay-per-view (PPV) package for the 2005-06 UH sports season. The complete package will include 15
HONOLULU — K5 The Home Team, in conjunction with partners Oceanic Time Warner Cable and the University of Hawai’i Athletics Department, have announced an expanded pay-per-view (PPV) package for the 2005-06 UH sports season.
The complete package will include 15 pay-per-view events for UH sports fans, including football (6 games), women’s volleyball (6 matches), and men’s basketball (3 games).
Order-taking for UH PPV will begin on Tuesday, July 26. Sports fans on all islands can order a single game or a 2005 Season Ticket by calling Oceanic Time Warner Cable Customer Service at 643-2337. A special automated phone order system can be accessed with a touch tone phone. Digital cable customers can order PPV games interactively on TV by tuning to digital cable channel 254. Last year’s Season Ticket holders will soon be receiving a postcard in the mail for easy renewal.
One of the new wrinkles in this year’s package will be the inclusion of PPV for two road football games (September 24 at new WAC opponent Idaho, and October 22 at San Jose State), four road women’s volleyball matches (both days of the season-opening NAC-WAA Tournament, featuring perennial Top 10 powerhouses Hawai‘i, Nebraska, Stanford, and Penn State on August 26 and 27 from Omaha, NE.), and a men’s basketball road game at UNLV on November 22.
In another value-added feature to the package, all UH PPV events will air twice each day on PPV for one cost. Thus, football games will air live and then be repeated 4 1/2 hours later (6pm and 10:30pm for home games), while women’s volleyball and men’s basketball games will air live on PPV and then repeat on PPV three hours later. Home PPV events will be seen the next day on K5, while road PPV events will air delayed on K5 at 9:30pm (after the K5 News at Nine) on the same day as the event.
Last year’s football-only, seven-game PPV package cost $125 for renewal buyers on O‘ahu and $150 for first-time O‘ahu buyers. This year’s 15-event season ticket will be $175 for renewal buyers and $200 for first-time buyers.
Individual-event purchases will range from $20 (O‘ahu buyers women’s volleyball and men’s basketball) to $40 for individual football games ($50 for the Boise State game). Neighbor Island fans will once again receive a large discount if they buy the season-ticket package ($75) or individual events ($10 to $20 per event).
“Our goal is to provide a more complete package at a reasonable price,” said K5 and KHNL General Manager John Fink. “We have taken a football-only concept which was just seven games in 2004 and grown it into a 15-event package covering three sports and special road events in women’s volleyball and men’s basketball that local viewers would traditionally not have seen.”
Fink also pointed out that only once in the past 22 years has a UH regular-season women’s road volleyball game been aired locally (in 1995, K5 covered the Rainbow Wahine’s final Big West win at UC-Santa Barbara, which capped a perfect 18-0 conference record). And UH men’s basketball has rarely, if ever, seen a non-conference road game beamed back to Hawai‘i for local fans.
“We’re pleased that fans will be able to see UH road contests that would not have been available without pay-per-view,” Herman Frazier, UH Athletics Director, said. “These pay-per-view telecasts, combined with the 100-plus free telecasts on K5, will offer fans throughout the state of Hawai‘i with some quality entertainment and pro-vide UH with some much-needed revenue and considerable exposure.”
Fink said other PPV opportunities may present themselves (such as postseason tournaments), and will be looked at, on a case-by-case basis, as the 2005-06 UH sports season progresses.
