Why Hawaii football plays in the Hawaii Bowl so often

Hawaii plays in the Hawaii Bowl on Saturday. That’s a common occurrence.

When the Rainbow Warriors kick off in Honolulu against Middle Tennessee (8 p.m. ET, ESPN), it’ll mark the 11th bowl appearance in program history. It’ll be the seventh appearance in the Hawaii Bowl and the ninth in a bowl in Hawaii, as the Rainbow Warriors also played in the 1989 Aloha Bowl and 1999 Oahu Bowl. Those are now defunct, and the island’s bowl game is the Hawaii Bowl, sponsored by hotel chain Sheraton.

If you’re like me, you’re used to lounging around on Christmas Eve or Christmas night, flicking on ESPN, and noticing that a bowl game is going on in a locale much warmer and paradisiacal than yours — Honolulu, specifically, and the Rainbow Warriors are always playing. (They are not actually in the game every year, but it feels that way.)

When the bowl game started up in 2002, its charter had a clause that’s widely referred to as the “Hawaii guarantee.” That’s carried over now that the Rainbow Warriors have moved from the WAC to the Mountain West, along with other former WAC teams.

It means that if Hawaii gets itself eligible for a bowl game and isn’t the Group of 5’s New Year’s Six bowl representative, the Hawaii Bowl is obligated to offer the Rainbow Warriors a bid. The same arrangement existed for BCS bowls, in the era when those were a thing.

If Hawaii doesn’t make a bowl game or qualifies for the New Year’s Six, the bowl offers a bid to someone else from the Mountain West. Conference USA and the American split the other bid over the years to complete the tie-ins.

Hawaii wasn’t eligible for a bowl game in any year between 2011 and 2015. It’s eligible now, so it’s back.

It’s expensive and time-consuming to fly a college football team and its entire support staff many hours across the Pacific Ocean and into the mainland. If Hawaii is eligible for a bowl game that doesn’t carry extra special significance, it makes infinite financial sense to stay home and play in Honolulu. The Hawaii Bowl is at Aloha Stadium, their home field, which adds to the convenience.

The bowl reportedly carries a payout of at least $650,000, but it’s good for Hawaii to not have to break the bank to go elsewhere. And for the team that visits the island to play, there are two good things. One is the payout. Also, there’s this:

... and this:

... and this:

It’s probably not the worst college football trip a team could make.

Hawaii’s 3-3 in Hawaii Bowls. This will make seven Warrior appearances in 15 editions of the game. They haven’t won since 2006 against Arizona State, so this is a good chance — but not the last chance, certainly — to right the ship.