When the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl was born, everybody knew a day would come when the game would have to do without its hometown attraction.

Thanks to Hawai'i's 38-28 loss at Nevada Saturday, we now know that day is Dec. 24, 2005.

"The reality was we knew we wouldn't have UH for 10 consecutive years," said Pete Derzis, vice president of ESPN Regional Television, which owns and operates the game.

What they still don't know — and what remains anybody's guess — is how many people will show up to watch, say, Nevada play Tulsa? Or, Louisiana Tech meet Marshall?

That is, as one UH official put it yesterday, the million-dollar question.

While the figure might not be far off, the importance of the turnout isn't solely financial. In the Hawai'i Bowl's case, the NCAA requires a 25,000 turnstile attendance average over a rolling three-year period to maintain certification in the crowded and coveted bowl lineup.

Drop too far below it or too often and there is a risk of getting dumped as the Silicon Valley Football Classic was this year.

The Hawai'i Bowl's magic minimum this year is 12,000, according to executive director Jim Donovan. With what bowl officials say is between 4,500 and 5,000 tickets already sold and the approximately 15,000 tickets the eventual participants will be contracted for and responsible for distributing, getting 20,000 tickets distributed won't be a problem.

But enticing 12,000 or more into Aloha Stadium might be. The two teams — one each from the Western Athletic Conference and Conference USA — will be lucky to fly in 2,500 fans between them.

And since the Islands aren't exactly crawling with alumni from those areas (anybody know when the Southern Mississippi chapter next meets?), the bulk of the crowd is going to have to be locally based. Not all that promising a proposition given the meager turnouts for UH's games with Boise State and Fresno State.

You will undoubtedly hear about how important the game's survival is to UH, something that should not be overlooked.

In the three previous years of the Hawai'i Bowl, it has become easy to take the game for granted with UH as a perennial participant. But the 2001 season, when UH finished 9-3 with the blowout of Brigham Young and got left out of the postseason because there was no hometown game, is a vivid reminder of what could happen again without the Hawai'i Bowl.

Indeed, the only thing worse than a Hawai'i Bowl without UH is the Warriors without any bowl.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.