They gently tip-toed around the fate of the soon-to-be 45-year-old Rainbow Classic yesterday, using words like "reformatted," but the reality is the University of Hawai'i's most venerable athletic event, at least as we used to know it, ends this year.

The eight-team tournament field will be sliced in half and ushered out of the Christmas holidays to another slot in 2009 to be replaced by ESPN Regional Television's inaugural and more cost-effective Diamond Head Classic.

It is a sports story that painfully tugs at decades of rich tradition and enduring memories (Pete Maravich, Michael Jordan, Tom Henderson, Elvin Hayes, Isiah Thomas ...). But it is also a tale similar to what is happening in dozens of other industries these days, where the headlines remind us of the wave of restructuring, streamlining and cost-cutting rolling across the business landscape.

As sad a sign as it is that UH athletics no longer provides us much of a buffer from grim economic news, it is encouraging to see that somebody up in Manoa, in this case athletic director Jim Donovan, has finally begun to apply business principles and foresight to the operation of the state's only Division I athletic program.

Part of the reason that UH has struggled to elevate some of its programs and waded in red ink for so long is that such big-picture vision and economic grounding has too often been lacking. In that the Rainbow Classic has been, well, a classic example. UH has been slow to come to grips with the realities of changing NCAA exemptions and TV issues that define holiday tournaments.

And the Rainbow Classic has suffered for it with weakened fields and declining attendance. So much so that UH said the tournament lost upwards of $100,000 last year and will likely lose more this year. What was once at the forefront of holiday college hoops tournaments has become but a money-draining relic.

The ERT-operated Diamond Head Classic, meanwhile, should provide UH better competition, a more attractive schedule, enhanced visibility and, in the process, save the school six figures right off the top.

ERT, with its resources, muscle and visibility, can leverage scheduling deals beyond UH's means. It is the ultimate outsourcing. And UH basketball could use a helping hand like the one the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl has given football.

Even UH coach Bob Nash, a man in some ways defined by a record-breaking 30-rebound night in the 1971 Rainbow Classic, acknowledged the realities. "I participated in the Rainbow Classic and I have a love for that Classic, but I think as time goes on you have to change with the times," Nash said.

At UH, it is about time some things changed. Sadly, the decline of the Rainbow Classic is part of the price paid for it coming so late.

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