Sometimes, straying from tradition hurts. Instead of tempting traditional Christmas Day television audiences with the lure of aloha during doubleheader bowl games, the Jeep O'ahu and Aloha Bowl games are moving to the Mainland, leaving Hawai'i tourism officials feeling like they're the ones left in the cold. But you have to be realistic. It is very hard to make ends meet in these events.
People have to realize how hard it is to make the nut to pay the teams.
The Christmas Eve and Christmas Day football games, broadcast nationally from Aloha Stadium, drew less than 25,000 fans last season, an all-time low. Last season's Aloha Bowl between Boston College and Arizona State was the ninth-most watched game of the year's 24 televised bowls, but organizers couldn't fill the stadium. Changing tastes, marketing and economics have factored against the success of holding bowl games, said Fishman, who was on the organizing committee for the Aloha Bowl in the early 1980s. Having several bowl games in the span of one week probably made it difficult to sustain the high attendace level needed. There's no direct way to measure how many people come to Hawai'i because they're triggered by bowl games, said Pearl Imada Iboshi, the state's chief economist.