The Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl gave the University of Hawai'i football its largest television audience ever, more than 2.33 million households for its Christmas Eve victory over Arizona State.

The audience eclipsed the previous high of 2.28 million homes that saw UH beat Illinois in the 1992 Holiday Bowl, also on ESPN.

"We're absolutely excited ... ecstatic!" said Pete Derzis, vice president of ESPN Regional Television, which owns and operates the Hawai'i Bowl.

"The ratings just reinforce how the nation looks forward to watching the Hawai'i Bowl in prime time. It was a great platform for the two schools and, certainly, the UH program, Colt Brennan and his teammates," Derzis said.

Combined with the replay, the game was seen by approximately 2.7 million households.

"It was a very large game for our school," UH head coach June Jones said. "You can't buy that kind of coverage in prime time."

Jones said the game has meant a lot of positive feedback in recruiting. "We're getting a lot of calls and e-mails," he said.

ESPN spokesman Michael Humes said the Hawai'i Bowl has had the highest numbers of any of the first seven bowl games played this season through Dec. 26. Numbers for other games are not yet available, Derzis said.

The UH-ASU game also was the most-seen of the five Hawai'i bowls. Last year's Nevada-Central Florida overtime game was seen by 1.98 million households.

After having a Pac-10 team for the first time in its history, the Hawai'i Bowl is expected to return to a Conference USA representative to play the Western Athletic Conference representative for 2007. Under the terms of a contract signed last year, the Pac-10 was to appear in 2006 and have an option to return in 2008 with C-USA filling the spot in 2007. "I believe what we have in the contract is what we'll end up with for next year," Derzis said.

Derzis said a date for the 2007 game has yet to be set and will likely depend on what the NFL does with the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dates.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.