MACHALO, EVERYBODY
Problem: Hawai'i is financially strapped, so much so that they might have to consider dropping football altogether. That's the storyline from yesterday, at least, since Hawai'i's AD has backed off that statement today, stating a need to make the case for "urgency" in restructuring their current "funding model." Cloaking that in management-speak doesn't change the basics: the Warriors have run in the red for 11 out of the past 13 seasons, and no amount of "proactive top-down financial reconfiguration and asset stress amelioration across the next twelve quarters" changes that.
The Mid-American Conference and ESPN have agreed to a new 13-year media rights deal through 2026-27, an industry source told ESPN.
Put Hawai'i in the MAC, get some of that delicious, life-sustaining ESPN moneyfall, and give the Midwest what it wants most in November: an excuse to go to somewhere that isn't the Midwest. Want to nab some Big Ten recruits? We'll send you to Hawaii once a year, son. What's Purdue gonna promise besides a special field trip to Iowa City? Despair? Well, they've got that. You want that despair, you go ahead and go to Purdue. Come to Akron, and we'll take you to Diamond Head once a year.
You say: won't that get expensive? No, because the arrangement involves Hawai'i never having to leave the island. Hawai'i plays every MAC team, every year. How does this work logistically? Shut up, nerds. Just make a schedule and you'll make it work. Florida plays Easterns Kentucky and Michigan this year, so at this point it's not like football games have to happen for any reason, or count for or mean anything. Sorry, Detroit: the MAC Championship Game is in Honolulu now, and no one will regret this decision for an instant.
All we do all day long is solve problems. MAChalo, y'all. It's not even funny how much shit Robert Kekaula is about to talk about Akron.