The demand for high-definition television cable boxes has tripled statewide since the final game of the University of Hawai'i Warriors' undefeated football season.

Oceanic Time Warner Cable ran out of HDTV boxes, but is expecting 5,000 to 6,000 to arrive this week.

"We were doing 300 to 400 new HDTVs a week," said Norman Santos, Oceanic's vice president of operations. "It's been pretty wild."

Santos said requests for HDTV boxes for the week of Dec. 3 climbed to more than 1,000. "And that was the week of the storm," he said.

He can't guarantee that football fever is the driving force behind sales, but said the seasonal holiday spike usually comes later, right after Christmas.

Not only are the winning Warriors fueling more business for the cable company, but stores that sell high-definition televisions and big, flat-screen sets are seeing a boom along with the morale boost across the state.

Counting on customers who may be teetering on the brink of buying a new TV, retailers say they wouldn't be surprised to see the surge go right up to New Year's Day, when the Warriors take on the University of Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Over at Best Buy off Nimitz Highway, big-screen TVs dominate wall after shining wall.

General Manager Shawn Troup said a big jump in business there is directly attributed to the Warriors.

"Everything about the Warriors is positive. Customers are in a good mood. We're winning, and everybody's in a good mood," he said.

Troup said fans who couldn't get into the sold-out home games decided to upgrade their home-viewing.

"We did get a lot of people coming in saying that they had to get the flat-screen TV for the last two games."

Customers showed up the Friday night before or even the morning of the games telling salespeople: "I have to get a TV right away."

He said, "It has been great. It's awesome. People are buying a lot of televisions. It's good for our business."

The store notes that customers can get HDTV through cable or by satellite technology.

At Shirokiya, sales have been good for most of this winning football season, said advertising manager Anna Mae Sakaki.

"Whenever the Warriors do well, sales are always good," Sakaki said. "A lot of our shoppers are sports fans."

She could not provide specific data, but said sales for the past two months have risen better than in most football seasons.

"They're looking to get the big screens and the HDTV," she said.

And she suspects there may be another rush to buy right after Christmas.

"There may be a surge right before New Year's," Sakaki said. "Now it's time to 'gift' themselves."

Santos said Oceanic has accelerated orders that it typically wouldn't have gotten until the end of March, so those shipments come in the first part of January. That might not satisfy everyone in time for the Sugar Bowl, Santos said, but "we'll be able to satisfy more of the needs."

Most cable customers opt to pick up the box from an Oceanic counter and install the five cables themselves rather than wait days or more to have a technician make a house call.

"It's easy enough to do," Santos said. "The cables are all color-coded."

And Santos said his company is making service for the game a priority to ensure there are no technical difficulties for cable-dependent Hawai'i — already scheduling people to work overtime on New Year's Day.

"We are preparing as if this is the Super Bowl," he said.

For Santos, football fever hasn't just been an amazing experience on the job.

"I think it's helping to fuel a lot of things," he said. With Oceanic serving as a corporate sponsor, he even got to toss the coin for the Boise game.

"For me, it's just excitement-plus," Santos said.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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