They began popping up over the weekend in Waikiki and Maui and, come Friday, you'll see them as a chanting, red-clad horde in Aloha Stadium.

They are the traveling University of Wisconsin football fans and for the University of Hawai'i, which plays the Badgers, their arrival by the thousands for Thanksgiving is indeed reason to give thanks.

With the Warriors' average attendance (28,970) otherwise in danger of hitting a season low for head coach June Jones' seven seasons, not to mention the task of balancing the athletic department checkbook after a run of deficit years, Badger Nation's ticket-buying presence is practically providential.

But it is more than just UH's windfall. The Badgers, many of whom are on seven- and eight-day multi-island packages, are good for the state's primary business of tourism and all that flows from it.

Their eventual numbers, which UW officials estimate at 6,000 — or more — coupled with the estimated 12,000 Southern California fans in September plus a couple thousand more brought in by Fresno State and Boise State, demonstrate a value UH brings but for which the school is rarely recognized.

Acknowledgement is overdue especially in the coming months when the Aloha Stadium Authority will consider adjusting the rent it charges UH.

For UH, curiously enough, is one of the few major tenants that actually pays rent — $300,000 more per year — plus $500,000 in operational costs to play there.

If we're told how valuable the Pro Bowl is because it claims to bring in 22,000 visitors a year — and the mantra is chanted with each check the state cuts the NFL — then, surely, UH's business is of some value, too.

If the state is willing to pay the NFL an average of $4.2 million per year through 2009, let's not overlook the stadium's original and primary tenant.

If the Pro Bowl gets control of stadium concessions, parking, signage and seemingly everything but gas and mineral rights in Halawa, do you think UH could at least have full use of the baseball press box?

We're told how Pro Bowl TV coverage is a virtual ad for Hawai'i across the country. Not to be overlooked is that the Wisconsin game is the third UH home game shown nationally in 2005.

Of course, the appointed stadium authority is caught in a pickle here. It is charged with balancing a budget but without a whole lot of revenue streams. This is where the state, as it has done with the NFL, should step in and find a creative way to help make things right.

We're not saying the state should break the bank on UH's behalf — assuming there was anything left after the NFL got its loot — but working out a rent rebate for the school shouldn't be too much to ask.

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