The Wayne Coito Show - Ian Scheuring + Our UH vs UCLA Tour Finally Drops!

all righty here we go it's the wing koito show and it's wednesday and i'm so excited because i've been looking at the fall i know i know i don't like to look too far ahead myself but i've been looking at the possibilities of sitting in the stadium um let's just pick a stadium i don't know the one next to me if you're watching on the live stream um and it is the inside of a stadium built on chavez ravine so if you are a fan of the world champion l.a dodgers you know exactly what i'm talking about and i plan on being there again with hawaii sports fans in this photo it says dodgers welcome hawaii sports fans how cool is that right so to have um our name up there that was a very first tour of hawaii sports fans and that was in 2012. we started in san diego first ever game my grandma was there she is the first ever photo go look at our um the first ever photo i took was her in front of petco park in san diego and that was august of 2012 and we are approaching august of 2021 and we have another tour nine years later that wow nine years later wow um it's crazy very crazy and uh we started in uh padres and then we went to angel stadium and we went to dodger stadium and we saw shane victorino and we watched uh play usc in the coliseum and i'm not going to talk about how that game ended because a lot of us remember and for those that weren't there or don't know how it ended you can probably i don't know just guess how how it probably ended for hawaii norm chow's first ever game um but at least i got to party without ahead before the game and all of my hawaii sports fans group we took a a a stretched limo uh a hummer limo that was the first ever tour i can't guarantee the hummer limos hey maybe i'll pull them out again because i want to do a suite as well this time possibly dodgers stadium or maybe even at angel stadium and yes i'm getting ahead of myself but i'm already revealing some of the surprise a big tour that you can put your own uh deposit down for and now i'm gonna bring on my friends on facebook uh because i didn't even have it going if you're watching on youtube you or you're listening on the podcast um what these facebook viewers are about to hear are some very exciting bits of news that i'm very excited about and that is of course the uh first tour that i can officially finally since i've started this show announce um and um have we already been live or maybe we are already live i don't know um but you know i uh i've been a little bit uh let's just say it seems like we didn't know when it would be when we get to be back in the stands on a tour and that's something that i that's what this company is founded on going on tours and going to games um like i said the photo next to me says dodgers welcome hawaii sports fans and that was our uh first ever dodgers game we did now and you know funny enough that was our first ever dodgers game on our first ever tour and that was our third major league game already because we had already done two games prior to that wednesday night thursday night and saturday and now um we're going to almost replicate that adventure but uh we're going to stay in la and we're going to see hawaii play at the rose bowl so we'll be back there again we've already done that too we've already been there to the rose bowl with hawaii sports fans so um our tenth year of of offerings this crazy ten tenth year season of football tours and i finally um with with pretty sure intent that there will be fans in the stands um by the time this fall comes and we will be there and we'll have a tour um but we're gonna talk about that but before i get into um that and the tour and how you'll get an opportunity to also put a deposit down on the website by the end of the show that should be live and yeah i want to make this really fun get back to um the road and uh get back to seeing friends and family i don't know if it's gonna be the first story i might not actually we might have a tour before this tour in august but it's definitely the first uh football tour of the year and i'm super excited about it and i hope you all are um you know excited about traveling getting that vaccine we talked about last week on the show and you know every show have you seen this has been a common theme since last april or coming on a year that i've been doing this already and the theme has always been covered because this has been started in kovid but now that we're starting to emerge with the vaccine we know that that's the next step to have the vaccine and to be able to um get back shoulder to shoulder with fans not that i miss that aspect that much i'm gonna be honest yeah i don't mind being shoulder to shoulder with certain fans like people i know but um in the stands you realize how close in close contact you are with a lot of people when you're at a football game but um you know that's a part of the experience as well and this is all about the experience and speaking of experience ian sharing is about to join the show and a lot of you know him um producer of uh recently the nick rolovich show there was no coaches show for the uh football team this past year but todd graham obviously kovid made that really difficult but ian since has been promoted to a new job within hawaii news now so uh as digital producer um so digital news producer i believe is the title and um because of his new big boy title he isn't as much at the games but he shares a lot of his great perspective that he has on uh football and the in the current situation he talks about pay-per-view he talks about why he thinks the stadium is a good idea on campus and long-term he talks about um you know how he uh you know how he feels about uh experience because experience matters right everything about hawaii sports fans is the experience and that should be the same with any football stadium baseball stadium you go to right you want to be entertained and he talks about that um so i'm gonna bring on ian we we talked a little while ago uh straight from hawaii news now in kalihi and he uh we'll we'll be on for a little bit and by the time he's when he's done and he's pal i'm gonna come back on and i'm gonna talk about the tour to ucla versus hawaii football at the rose bowl um for some of you that have already experienced that game it was super cold hot i say muchaca and um that was a crazy day keoni aloha how is it larry jones how's it i'll see you there how do i get a ticket let's stay tuned larry because i'll um i'll definitely be helping you with that um with the hawaii sports fan store a few she's in the house too hi fush so when i bring on uh ian but stick around because after that we're going to talk about the tour but ian has a lot of great tips to share so without further ado here's ian shuri get going we got our boy insuring in the studio with us a virtual studio because like me is everywhere around the world it seems like um but now he's got a new gig so he's been uh kind of you haven't seen his face on tv as much anymore but he's still there he's still around town uh so that ian and first of all ian just aloha and welcome to the show what's up man it's good to see you i feel like with no fans in the stands for anything i haven't seen you or any of the other road warriors in like almost two years i know it it's crazy to say that out loud it is and i um you know just anticipating and we're going to talk about that on the show today is um our season next year and the excitement there and as you know i mean as a former player and as a former you know guy just every week at the games that pattern in your life of having fall kind of be football but now you you know you've kind of gone a different direction in your career as well so what is that like for you and has covid kind of affected your relationship kind of with football in general anyways yeah so i mean we didn't you know for the la for for rollo's entire time with uh we were doing a weekly coaches show um and so that was like a huge sector of my life during football season uh obvi obviously this last year with everything that was going on we didn't put on a show i only went to two of the home games at aloha stadium as a member of the media so that was really different you know it had been five years since the last time i didn't i wasn't at a football game you know including the road games and so it was a little bit different for me uh from the sports side the work side has been interesting you know we as a news station i was never working from home you know it felt like for a long time especially there in the beginning that uh we were working harder than than ever before given everything that was going on and the necessity of trying to give people information that could keep them safe potentially you know i think we took that really seriously so strange times um you know i've sort of been here in the in the in the newsroom for the entirety of it instead of covering sports or covering the football team or things like that but um it it feels like now with the amount of vaccine that's that's going into arms that we may finally you know we were on the down slope for a long time and now it's it's for the first time it really feels like things are starting to come back a little bit yeah and i agree i totally agree with that and i think um you know the fall gives us some time and some leeway a year ago we thought oh two weeks we'll have to stay home two weeks and now isn't it crazy now 52 weeks went by and we're like yeah this isn't over yet so you know i mean yeah how has that been from the news perspective and what you've been able to see i mean it must have it must be really crazy well we re there really was a time when it was like okay great we'll all go home for two weeks in quarantine and on day 15 we'll pick it right back up again and we'll move on you know um i remember early last march um before you know the nba shutdown happened on march 11th that was the same day that tom hanks got diagnosed with coronavirus that was the same day that uh you know some of the local stuff started to announce that drastic measures were being taken i remember earlier that that uh month having a conversation with um one of the people here where just we remarked on how weird it was that it seemed like every day something was happening where if you had told me a week ago that that thing was going to happen i would have been like there's no way there's no way that the nba is going to shut down their entire season yeah and it was it was some variation of that almost every day of course you know where flights were cancelled and then travel to entire countries were cancelled and then you know events the first time i really think i thought to myself oh damn this is for real was uh one of the people who works here uh her brother is an infectious disease expert uh on the mainland and he told us like every gathering every conference every big meeting among people in the healthcare industry so you know every every industry has these big conferences in tampa or in vegas or and he told us in late february that every conference every gathering of people who work in medicine was off the table this was before anything this is in late february and i thought to myself like if the smartest people in the room are shutting it down and canceling everything it's got to be only a matter of time right until the rest of of the world catches up and sure enough man it was like two weeks after that where everything was closed it's just amazing and um how life has really changed and you know for you being out there on the sidelines that you know that became normal for you and for all of us who have worked in sports and in this industry or in some very derivative of it as you know it's a very fickle you know type of industry right you're never your job is always up in the air every year anyway so sure you know talk about just how used to you know just the fact that in this position as a sports person as a news person you have to be pretty flexible and be um able to adapt to whatever situation and and you know what's funny that you bring that up is we had just gone through you know leading leading into coronavirus the the like 20 to 24 month period before that was uh the kilauea eruption that went on for six months and we had probably four or five hurricanes in that stretch we had a big plane crash at dillingham we had uh the mountain obviously the tragedy of diamond head yeah um and so in early february last year before all the pandemic shutdowns if you had asked me i would have been like there's nothing we haven't seen there's nothing we can't cover there's nothing that we're not prepared for and then this happened you know and so you talk about flexibility man and it's like you know we had to completely reevaluate every facet of hawaii news now overnight you know i look out here our sales staff most of our marketing staff our traffic controllers they're still not here you know everybody is still working remotely wow um the people in news downstairs you know we had to everything about our newscasts changed you know we started having people anchor from home um you don't see two people sitting next to each other on the the marquee desk in our set anymore um and so there were a lot of adjustments and a lot of flexibility um i do think some of the things that we had done leading up to last march and last february prepared us for that you know we you sort of get used to being nimble and you know reacting at every whim a whim but uh you know i i'm really proud of how the people here um you know responded to everything that happened last year but man but now i really feel like we could do anything yeah the flexibility level now i can say with certainty you know unless i don't know an asteroid comes i know we don't even want to even get into those hypotheticals because who who knows we know what we're not ready for now i mean you know in 2016 when all these celebrities died and you know everything happened and elections happen people are like oh my god it's the end 2016 is the worst year ever so yeah i mean for sure what i would give for 2016 now 28 2018 was the craziest year of my professional career you know i was doing rollo's show but i was over on the big island covering that eruption and we filmed documentaries about about everything that happened there not so much about the lava because after a while you just get used to the lava but how that impacted people yeah um yeah and so 2018 man by the time the new year rolled around between that and football i was just done yeah and at this point i'm like what i wouldn't give for 2018 yeah like compared to last year man well now we know i mean i think all of us realize that uh we are we have the medal um for anything in in this um you know in this chaotic world um but in terms of football definitely a lot of people will um you know always associate you with sports or something in some way and being like the biggest guy in the sideline even at a football game you're the biggest guy in the sideline uh usually you know but this past season for uh is a very um i mean unique is like the understatement obviously not just covid but having coach graham in here and just talk about your assessment of the post now that the season is over coaching change crazy schedule i mean how do you um put this into context with respect to the other previous whatever fifty hundred years of uh football that we've had prior to this yeah well what i will say and uh with the utmost credit to to todd and to his staff and to uh dave matlin and to everybody at uh is i can't imagine a first and now second year head coach coming in and having to you know under the best of circumstances if everything is perfect and your entire uh outside situation is perfectly set up coaching football is still extremely hard under the best circumstances and the things that coach graham and his staff have had to go through um you know you come in in the middle of a pandemic you know you don't really get the same certainly not the season experience but you don't get the same first year recruiting you don't get the same first year of workouts with your team you don't get the same spring ball you know this it was so difficult with everything that was going on with the pandemic and now everything that's going on with the stadium situation what's that going to look like how involved is does todd need to be in the development of those plans while also worrying about the quality of of play um and so to just keep the ship on course um through all of that is a is a task that really would be unfair to ask of any you know coach and outside of the circumstances that were in some that you wouldn't try to put anybody through obviously but um you know i i do think um that results aside being able to keep focused and keep your team moving forward and getting better through all of that uh would be an accomplishment of itself and you know like i said uh this the situation that they're facing moving forward uh what the stadium situation in manoa is going to end up looking like and how involved he's coach graham is going to have to be uh in putting that all together um yeah he's got a lot on his plate yeah and he's gonna deserve a lot of credit if he's still able to [Music] keep all of that uh off to one side and keep his guys focused when you look at the end of this season and going into the bowl game and winning the bowl game and having a guy like calvin turner um you know what do you see foresee for this upcoming season uh for uh football i guess at this point right now too yeah i mean look like i said the there's this one like prevailing school of thought um where you know if you were the national champion this year or if you went 0-6 or 0-7 or depending on how many games you played it's almost a year that could have been thrown out right it's like you start late you don't get a spring a spring ball you don't get those same you know you had guys working out a little bit over the summer but nothing was the same and so when you look at the talent that they ended the year with uh when you look at the recruiting class when you look at uh the roster and say well now we're actually going to get a little bit more of a spring opportunity a little bit more learning now we're going to get a little bit more of a regimented summer program even with all the distractions going on with regard to the program it's hard for me to sit here and think that the quality of football would be worse in this upcoming season just based on the things they're going to be able to do this year that they weren't able to do a year ago yeah and so uh now you could also make the argument that that's going to be true for each and every one of the teams that they play right is they won't be the only ones who now get a spring or uh now get that same regiment but fans of football should expect i would think to see um you know a product on the field wherever the field ends up being yeah that is an improvement of what we saw last year i'm back to the field situation too i mean you've been on that campus several times inching field several times interviewing coaches after the game can you imagine walking into that field or had you ever imagined walking onto that field and thinking that the team could actually stage a whole actual regular season game on that field um so what i'll say about that is uh with all due respect to the program and with all due respect to the stadium authority and the people who uh run that enterprise the uh arrangement between the aloha stadium and the uh football program is obviously not equitable it's obviously one of the most backward arrangements in division one football and uh i in my mind you have to do one of two things if you're uh you have to insist to uh the state authorities into the stadium authority that that arrangement change to become more equitable for this for the university which they did we know that david matlin sent a letter uh signed by him and david lassner through the stadium authority saying this doesn't work for us here's how you can make it work for us uh but you know the combination of that lack of equity and the bind that you put us in with that announcement that they weren't going to be able to hold events with any fans moving forward um necessitated this change right so you either need an arrangement in the new stadium that is more equitable for the university or you need to build a facility on campus which uh i think in my opinion you know if i was the head coach at uh if i was in todd graham's shoes i would prefer to play my home games at that site on campus i just would um i think that uh looking at the footprint of that existing facility now and trying to find uh the least disruptive way to get to 27 000 seats yeah 30 000 seats 32 000 seats um that's obviously going to be a challenge and you know whether the answer is temporary you know stadium style seating or you know obviously they won't be able to pour concrete and create a stadium there uh overnight but that seems like the preferred solution to me and a lot of you know there are misconceptions about what you really need out of that facility right we don't the notion that we that uh football needs a stadium that seats 51 000 people that the way that aloha stadium does is not just flat out not true yeah yeah um the notion that it you know we i i've talked with people in the past that there are division one college programs on the mainland whose stadiums seat 70 000 people that have smaller footprints than aloha stadium people who don't travel the way that you and i do some of these uh stadiums on the mainland don't realize that aloha stadium is massive yeah it is it's huge it's huge huge um you know it's it's got a bigger footprint than the coliseum which seats you know closer to a hundred thousand people to 50. it's just so big and so there's this misconception that you need x amount of fans there's a misconception that the stadium needs to be so big uh there's a misconception that parking is a huge issue how many how many uh football games have you and i been to on the mainland where they don't have massive parking structures at these stadiums not at all on the mainland yeah they don't have you know there's not one stadium that i can remember and if you can't let me know that has a parking lot bigger than the one at aloha state yeah they're just not yeah i mean if you start knocking these misconceptions off the board where we don't need as many people a stadium that sits as many people as you think we don't need a stadium that's as big as you think we don't need as much parking as you think we need when you start to dismantle some of these things now you think okay if we're not worried about that and we're not worried about that and we don't have to really worry about that the stadium on campus starts to sound pretty good yeah i think yeah um you know the benefits to that are clear we don't need to waste any time talking about that um the answer for what's best for uh though may not end up being what's best for the state and for the stadium you know how do you then if uh is going to build a facility on campus now you have a real hard time justifying the hundreds of millions of dollars that you're going to spend rebuilding lost stadium right because what is that facility going to be used for so um you know you think about it that way you also think you know the state's gone kind of a long time without really worrying too much about how that impacts the university yeah of course does david matlin say you guys didn't care about how this impacted us for how long we're out yeah we're going to do it we're going to do it this way um you know i i'd like to i'd like to see someone who has a clever idea to get uh that space on lower campus to even if it was 28 000 yeah you know if if somebody clever could put together a plan a sustainable plan for that that's something that'd be really interesting to me i totally agree and i um you you look at the numbers first of all like you said i mean we we're averaging like 20 000 people at a low stadium anyways if that if that yeah if that you know um and long-term sensibility would say like i don't know and i think there's always been this thing in hawaii like bombay bombay things are going to happen bombay will be back to it and i don't know you know you've been in hawaii your whole life too do you see this program ever getting back to those 41 000 people in the seats average days or you know what do you what do you see for this hawaii program well so what i'll say about that and with regard to attendance um and i hedge this by saying i love aloha stadium i have so many good memories in that place i played in that stadium in pop warner i played in that stadium in high school i played in that stadium in the hawaii bowl like yeah i and that's just my playing experiences i was at uh you know i was born in 88 and i've been to every meaningful football game in that stadium since 1988 except except for the years that i was at arizona state um you know i was at the byu the byu game into that like the memories that i have of that place yeah no one could ever take away right absolutely that being said it's not fun to go to a game at aloha stadium that experience is just not good um and that's something that i say to you but that i would say to people in the stadium authority and i have expressed to people who work for the university of hawaii now there are layers of reasons for that right the structure you know involved in you know what control does uh have over in-game operations what control does the stadium have over in-game operations you know the scoreboard you know who is is it the stadium that's in charge of that or is it the football team exactly yeah you know questions like that the stuff that happens in the parking lot the stuff that happens in the concourse the food vendors in the concourse that's not the university that's the stadium that manages that you know when they have entertainers um in that little courtyard in the south end zone that's the stadium that does that that's not always the university that does that and so consolidating your game day operations um would certainly make for an improved fan experience um which would almost certainly even if the quality of the football wasn't so good if people thought they were going to go to a football game and have a good time even if the football product didn't change they would still make the effort to do that you know if if it becomes too much of a headache if parking sucks and seating sucks and you can't hear the pa announcer and you know myriad problems then people say no thanks yeah exactly again a problem that seemingly could be solved by that on campus stadium you get full control of game day operations you get full control of fan experience you get full control of all of these different elements that make for an enjoyable or not fan experience um and that's got to be something i would think that the powers that be at uh if they're serious about wanting to restore uh some of the attendance in this program are gonna have to consider you know again i i understand that most of your listeners in hawaii probably don't have uh the same uh breadth of stadium visits that you and i have but you know you go to boise or you go to colorado state or you go to some of these shiny not necessarily new but shiny facilities and see you know at boise on third downs there's this and you know yeah and another noises there are lots of cues that uh could get from some of the way that these other programs handle game day operations that i think would positively impact that experience you know if but the way i think about it and the way i'm sure plenty of people at home think about it is if it's more fun to watch the game on tv than at home that's what people are going to do yeah so you've got to restore a little bit of what it means in terms of experience at the game something that i think is clearly left you know and i again i don't want this to seem like i'm just ripping on um anyone or any one institution but you know between uh the third and fourth quarters at uh football home games they do that game where you take the football and you throw it into the yeah cut out yeah right that wooden cutout is splintered and beat to hell from 20 years yeah at least 20 years yeah football at it yeah and i know it's 20 years because that cutout is of the old nike 2000 2001 uniforms with a leg leg patch and it's chad owens wearing number 82. so you know that like just just if you look at that as a microcosm of fan experience at uh that's some you know fan trope that hasn't evolved at all in 20 years that's an issue to me you know it's like if we're not keeping up if we're still doing the same old things it's no wonder people don't want to come to the games yeah well on the other hand too staying at home a lot of people um you know well overall let's just talk about the tv deals we talk about it a lot on here and you know we had blangiardi on here mayor of blangiardi before he was mayor he talked about you know his his um you know uh just frustration with the situation because he negotiated on the uh side the very first tv rights and then he got on the other side of the bargaining table and um he felt like he got kind of kicked out and um you know uh just renewed again another three year and um obviously people might say well he's a hawaiian union just now guy but hey um blangiardi was saying i wasn't going to charge people pay-per-view so you know just talk about the tv rights deal and kind of how it affects the team and just how you your your your view of it in general so uh i think objectively it's fair to say that the current arrangement between um the university and the tv rights holder has negatively impacted attendance at the games i think that's yeah i think objectively that could be stated as well i agree yeah that's clear i'm not that's not a hot take that's not some opinion that i have that's clearly what's going on um you the university and spectrum now are in this like uh never-ending circle of you know i and i can't i'm not reporting this i can't speak for anybody at uh nobody's told me this but uh needs that that seven-figure uh check that they get from the tv rights deal to continue operations can't at this point the the bottom line is too it's it's just not possible for uh really to continue to operate without that tv rights money so uh can't really get out of this arrangement because they need that paycheck well spectrum in order to afford that page that check that they're given to uh is now having to make adjustments to their pricing tier for these for these games especially for football that to the average fan like me seem to not make a ton of sense and i'll give you a couple of examples um last year before uh it there was all this strife about pay-per-view and if we were going to give people a break because of the covid and they can't go to the games and that was a whole discussion that obviously ended up not really happening would it have been a good show a good faith for university of hawaii to insist to their tv partner people can't come to the games if they want you know we'll eat some of the cost but we can't continue to charge full price for pay-per-view when fans can't go to the games anyway that seems predatory to me yes that was one problem the price tearing of that pay-per-view package used to be uh on the neighbor islands for people who couldn't go to the games there was a slightly lower tier and the price was slightly higher for people who lived on oahu who could go to the games that pricing tier was changed to be all one level in one fell swoop the tv rights holder made it more difficult for people who can't come to the games to watch so they de-incentivized disincentivized people who live on maui and on the big island and on kauai from watching uh football while making it easier for people who could go to the games to stay home and watch it on pay-per-view because they made it cheaper yeah so that it all be on one tier so from one move the people who live on the neighbor islands are now less likely to uh pay for that package because it's gotten more expensive and the people on oahu who can go to the games are less likely because now it's cheaper on pay-per-view now maybe that arrangement makes sense for the tv provider but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense for uh in my opinion again that's i'm not reporting that nobody's told me that i'm just piecing these things together uh not counting last year because uh obviously they didn't have a full slate of pay-per-view games and i also understand that the example i'm about to give is not exactly apples to apples comparing the nfl to university of hawaii football but to get the uh seven or eight or however many uh pay-per-view games a year the cost the total cost is higher than i pay as a directv subscriber for nfl sunday ticket so i can watch every uh nfl game every week of the entire season regardless of what market i'm in i wake up on sunday morning i can watch 13 different games over the course of the day i pay less for that than pay-per-view fans pay for all of the uh offerings excuse me again i understand that that's the business decision that the tv provider has to make in order to afford for the check that they have to send to uh who needs that check that cycle i i don't know uh how positively we can all believe is impacting the uh football program i i don't see it you know i don't want to come off again like i'm bashing here or bashing there but um there in my opinion there are clearly issues with that arrangement yeah there are clearly uh ways that that arrangement is negatively impacting the athletic department and specifically the football program um i don't i don't have a solution you know i don't it's not like i'm sitting here and i've punched the numbers and you know i'm ready to to offer somebody an alternative but yeah you know you ask the question about the tv deal yeah i i think they're the overwhelming uh majority of people who you know like you and i look at it from the outside would say there are some issues there that need to be worked out yeah yeah well um before we let you go we have to you brought up the rolo show a lot and um you know we a lot of people have been asking about the graham show we weren't able to have one this year but do you see that as a just the concept of the gram show is it going to exist anymore do you see the the school trying to to sell the rights to that or do you see hawaiian news now um taking over again uh you know that's a good question uh i know that uh pulling that show off during the pandemic would have been impossible um you know they didn't they didn't even let the broadcast cameras onto the field let alone um you know news cameras onto the field uh the nature of that show and our arrangement with um with spectrum necessitated that we couldn't use their footage for that show um and so everything that we ran in in that show needed to be shot yeah by one of our cameras um and that was just not a thing that would have been possible this year so um you know that's a question i think we're gonna have to wait and see what um what 2021 brings what the uh eventual setup for athletics for uh is by the time september and october roll around um i will say that it seems like given everything that we've been through you know by by mark by september when the season starts it'll have been a year and a half since the pandemic started um to have a year and a half worth of of covet tales to tell in a show like that um would seemingly make for some pretty compelling television uh yes you know between covid and last year and this year in the spring and trying to piece together a stadium on campus there are definitely some some interesting stories that could be told i don't have an answer for you right now about who's going to be telling them but if it's us i would think there'd be some some interesting content there to share yeah for sure well whatever it is i i know we'll we'll be excited to see you um on the sidelines hopefully soon or whatever i can't wait yeah just uh wherever but definitely been following your career and just uh exciting to see what's next for ian so mahalo for joining uh us on the show today yeah thanks buddy we'll see you soon hopefully in september sometime yes definitely hopefully then aloha all right excuse me that was ian sharing um some of you know he was a producer of the nick rolovich show for a long time and did the coach's show and is now uh taking on a bigger role at hawaii news now but uh hopefully we get to keep seeing him on the sideline he clearly knows a lot about uh football he has a vested interest in the team as well because of his um growing up here in hawaii and um growing up around the program and that's that's that's why so many people are passionate and emotional it's because of the history and you know people like ian people like you see him on the news and other people of course um you know rob and demelo and i know you know canola all those guys are uh fans at heart as well so um those guys do have a vested interest but definitely ian now that he um has a chance to kind of uh share his experiences and his his opinions more um you get to hear a side of him that is um you know a little bit more raw and i think he gave us a really great um you know synopsis of what the issues are really at uh and it's the same themes we play on every year it seems like right it's like oh um experience in the stadium oh oh um you know something to do with um you know the fact that you know you know the marketing or um issues that may not have to even do with the stadium that we can take care of so like ian was saying and now we're already dealing with pay-per-view and how that's affecting your fan base and he says and like he says objectively you can say this is not helping the fan base to have um you know um our people not know what's going on i was talking to my friend um someone who's pretty well known uh in the community as uh uh as a local leader actually um but you know this friend i i we i talked to him about and i know he keeps up a lot with uh football um and like me and like a lot of us didn't go to uh our but our local kids just like ian didn't go to uh played against uh even and is still a real big uh fan at heart and that's the thing it's like we a lot of us who just grew up in hawaii i think a lot of a lot of programs wouldn't even think about you know maybe but a lot of programs wouldn't prioritize as much because they're like well our alumni our kids on campus but hawaii being a commuter school hawaii being a place where local people um have always made the team a part of their life really for a long time and you know talking to ian about attendance it's kind of reflective that maybe it's not as big as part of people's lives but it's harder because like this friend who keeps up with uh football who knows people associated with the program when we talk about like calvin turner he was like huh oh yeah that's the one oh yeah that guy oh yeah oh sorry i didn't catch any of the games because they're all in pay-per-view you're like oh yeah that whole pay-per-view thing and you know that's that's the reality of it people are are going to lose interest like like ian said and that's that's that's a major issue um but uh like like you said there are you have to be able to have fun at the game when you go there no matter what's going on the field you have to have fun at the game and that's something that um the home team is has to make a priority anywhere we go we go to new mexico like a small stadium is calling it dreamsicle stadium it's like dream something stadium i forget dream i forget i forgot it's called but um even there you know they they get into the game there's not even that many people there with kovid this probably honestly the last game we went to there was probably a coveted game it could have counted as covet game because there were that few people on the stands um but at least their pa a guy is into the game and going crazy and helping the fans get into it and that's not hard to do you know that's something that is done in other places too and that's what's frustrating too about hawaii in general um not only uh especially the many bureaucracies that we are found in government agencies in hawaii which include the athletic department um you know it's it's as if um yeah it's as if we we choose to keep things the way they are like justin is saying the chad owens cutout is classic it is classic it is definitely classic and it's funny yeah ian's saying that fourth quarter game between third and fourth quarter where after or is it before the chihu cam my favorite part of it actually the two cam i give a plus two um but everything else like ian was saying it's like we have to evolve past some of those games it's like the sumo thing is still thing and the sumo thing will always be cool okay the sumo thing will always be funny to see people in big sumo you know suits obviously um but still that's like like like ian said a trope that we are still running you know until like a literally a dead horse until it's totally dead and extinct because these tropes have already moved on like we've people are you know have done you know baby shark or whatever right we always hear new generational things that are done at stadiums right there it is has been around forever but i remember when it first when that song first came out right in the 90s that was like the thing at every stadium um but uh has to get new things and make up their own things um and that's a major thing but something that uh you know and ian talked about is when you travel to a bunch of games you get to see up close what other teams are doing what other stadiums are doing um and uh i know that a lot of those guys travel so i'm not really sure why a lot of what they see in the mainland and by they i mean department leadership why a lot of those haven't been implemented um and yeah it's it's a lot of a holistic way of of marketing the program must be employed at all times right like apparel right brad says they need to sell more player jerseys not just 50 in one that's an example of that sean says get rid of billy via stupid games at uh football uh billy v he's been there for a while do we love him yes he's always going to be a guy a voice that we hear ability um has it been done for a while yeah we hear him and this is like like ian said this is nothing against the people there it's it's are we going to keep doing the same things over and over again and billy v is a comforting voice to have at games because he's a local guy and he knows how to make people laugh and keep people engaged maybe we do keep him but maybe we don't put him in the same and he does different things he he engages in different ways um but yeah we we could involve even more students we could do a lot of things every so many things are done at different places right every arena you go to you're like oh that's a cool game oh that's cool i've never seen that before and it's like why don't we do that at home we can do that right it's like we still have the blimp and the stan sheriff the you know it's a it's a cool thing right it's a it's kind of been a thing maybe it's too vintage now having that blimp that jack in a box of blimp and stand sheriff that we need to keep having it every year year and year and year out but um it's like that we it's the same things over and over again you know so um it's um important uh robert says best guest ever so wow big praise for ian sharing from robert who is one of the big hawaii sports fans of course robert um what five tours with hawaii sports fans and another one is ucla and um that tour should be live at this at this time if you go to it you can leave a hundred dollar deposit for the tour i am still um gonna be working on the details but you have till may 20th to leave a refundable fully refundable 100 deposit and um the total price will be um to be announced but just like everything else i mean i put on deposits for things i don't know all the full price to i mean like if you're afraid like you're not gonna be able to afford the door then go look at my outdoors and or call me you can even email me and we'll talk about it um but uh you know like these are not no i want to emphasize this these are not the traditional tours from hawaii like i don't feel like i'm taking people away from say panda right because panda is the tour group that everybody knows in hawaii right they work very closely with the school and um i would have fun if i went on a panda tour for sure i would definitely have fun because i love traveling and i love to just travel and go places however um i've devised tours craft experiences that are unlike what can be done on tours like panda which do not match their business um uh you know their formula which is to make profits and to get as many people and that's great and that's important i'm not i'm not against that at all because businesses you should make a lot of money on the other hand hawaii sports fans um we believe in just trying to stay afloat here and of course eventually i would love to continue to grow but i've made a lot of sacrifices personally as a founder of this company and i have um you know been really uh i think good with how i i i've just introduced different experiences to people and that's the difference it's making an experience and crafting experience from top to bottom and this tour is going to be one of those as well starting on a thursday we're gonna have a kickoff party in los angeles so you gotta fly in by thursday august 26th and that's the first night in the hotel um on friday we're gonna go and um give you time to get up and then we're gonna do like uh probably late lunch i'm thinking and maybe k-town i love koreatown we'll go up and maybe take a look at uh griffith observatory and just chill on that side of la in preparation for the game at dodger stadium which is all close by to that um and then we'll do the dodgers versus the rockies that's gonna be friday saturday uh is our game at the rose bowl so we're gonna tailgate beforehand we're gonna have the game um we'll have dinner afterwards um and uh yeah we'll see last time we did a pretty good mexican food everybody really liked hot dogs last time we went to we did a lot of hot dogs we did dodger dogs which will probably happen again that night at the dodger game um and that'll be a part of it as well um sunday sunday will be i'm assuming there will be the the schedule isn't out yet but um i'm assuming there will be a preseason nfl game there at so far on that sunday i'm assuming there there might not be so that won't be a part of it and that's why like i said like um you know the total price isn't there yet the total price will be comparable to what has been done in the past which i still think is very reasonable um and if you have really questions of want a rough price and you can reach out to me but when you look at um you know five nights hotels which we're gonna have uh and four games yes four games two nfl two major league baseball games starting with the dodgers and rockies on friday then saturday we're gonna have the uh game at ucla at the rose bowl in pasadena california um and then sunday we're going to do that game at so far so i anticipate that game either charges or rams preseason game will be um on tap and then we're going to do extra credit because who wants to go home on a monday morning let's just stay and do another fun game on monday because um yeah let's just do it i love that's the hardest right sundays to monday that transition sometimes and you're like oh but you know what this is going to be a good transition because we're going to stay on the main they're not going anywhere we're going to stay here and we're going to see the angels versus the yankees oh and you know i might be an angels fan so i'm excited for that one and um there'll be a brick installed in front of and we can go and see it in front of angel stadiums i'm gonna have my my my niece's name and my grandma's name two angels in my life who have passed on and who've guided me and um who are inspiring me in this business and that's why i um you know this hawaii sports fans exists um and that'll be exciting to see the uh two great teams two great teams right not just the yankees but the angels to hopefully making the playoffs this year um but with that being said uh this will be another exciting season hopefully of not normal but whatever the normal is and i anticipate every stadium in california also to be taking fans maybe not full capacity yet but maybe maybe um and likely with vaccine like we talked about last week so that was something brought up on the show last week looking ahead to the fall and especially in california where a lot of games are where hawaii plays most of his games and what is it going to look like in the stands are we gonna have fans and of course um the numbers are starting to look pretty good now that the vaccines are moving out um texas went on opened up completely today so unless there there's something i don't know about in their numbers that seems slightly uh premature possibly um but who knows you know um we've already we've been pretty disjointed from the beginning of this pandemic the way that um policy has has run um throughout this country so that's what's also sometimes scary about what the future holds but at the same time i'm pretty confident and like josh said as well even in california um the the numbers have shown already just with the vaccine that has already been released um the cases have been reflected that way and going we see a downward trend brad says they need height men and height women yeah and you can get students to do that you get students you know that's something dude put them on the live stream and that's something at a home game too that would be fun you could have that on the big screen you could have the camera going around just like in a stadium right where you see somebody in there that's what should be happening at the game it's possible already that's like there's no excuse already to be living in the you know the not even the 90s i don't even know where our gay motifs are some of them you know it's we they need to step up so that's true uh robert says smaller more personal what i like yes all right i think he's talking about the tours because robert is um you know our number one holy sports fan i give him that title because to pressure him also they keep coming on on tours but robert's been there for a lot of big west tournament tours and um of course the big west tournament this year basketball tournament will not have fans so that's a little disappointing um so we'll miss out again with robert um coming out on a tour um but you know he's also been there at san diego with me we saw the chargers play marcus mariota when mariota was a titans quarterback and the day before that we saw uh get crushed in a stadium that now doesn't even exist um i passed by that scene i was very sad to see the old jack murphy stadium obviously was qualcomm recently and now it's basically just the big the jumbotron i think that's just standing up like by itself so it's crazy but robert was there too so you know lots of memories we make with friends and that's what i really love about our tours as well um brad says we need to step up for wayne oh thanks brad i'll give you a love i'm on facebook right now i'm looking at comments but he says we need to step up for wayne thank you please step up um it's been a it's been a lot of work definitely nine years to grow this but honestly i've so much has happened that i i i i'm glad the pandemic in a way has forced me into reevaluating also how this company um situates itself within hawaii and within the fan base of hawaii football and within like the the hawaii fa the fans of sports in hawaii and that's what i want to do that's a goal for me to keep growing and growing this business to to every fan in hawaii whether you like uh football or not um you know whether you just want to go on a trip and see the mainland and go to great games i mean i think that's something that um will um continue to be a hallmark of this company especially the super bowl tour which will be in la as well so this will be a nice uh warm up for la and then next week maybe we'll be talking about another tour who knows uh is going to go to the pacific northwest one of my favorite cities well adjacent to one of my favorite cities because corvallis oregon is the home of the oregon state beavers and one of my favorite cities not my favorite city is portland and hawaii will be there as well so i'm going to announce another tour later on hawaii versus ucla though get to the website www.hisportsfans.com i should have been saying that from the beginning www.hisportsfans.com place and deposit i'll be sharing a lot of that on social media get on the mailing list if you're not on it yet um and you'll be able to uh you know get all the latest info so hisportsfans.com you can find um the link in the menu to uh versus ucla and then when you scroll down um there'll be a paypal and then when i get your i already tried the button and i paid myself a hundred dollars or deposited so it does work um but uh you know it's fully refundable until may 20th or april may 20th i think i put on there um but if anything um once you start putting down money on uh you know the actual tour the the rules will change a little bit but also yeah the deposit only ensures your space until that time um before then i'm anticipating a lot of people are going to be excited about you know this tour and getting out there so hopefully this is a good one all right guys it's another wine cuarjo show for this wednesday thanks for joining us on facebook or on youtube or on the hawaii sports fans channel which can be found at spotify apple podcast pandora iheartradio podbean and even more but for ian shuring who gave us a great interview uh this is another show from wing koito talk to you guys later aloha