A wider assortment of University of Hawai'i postseason and regular season contests could be made available to local fans through Oceanic Time Warner Cable's addition of ESPNU, it was announced yesterday.

ESPNU is the two-year-old, 24-hour, all-college sports subsidiary of ESPN, Inc.

The NCAA softball super regional matching UH and Tennessee this past weekend became available in Hawai'i as part of an agreement between Oceanic and ESPNU. Norman Santos, Oceanic vice president for operations, said Oceanic had plans to add ESPNU in August, but negotiations to bring in the softball regionals sped up the process.

In the past, satellite subscriptions were often necessary for Hawai'i residents to view ESPNU events involving UH.

"When there is UH programming on there, then we're going to be very pleased," said John McNamara, UH associate athletic director. "But that will certainly be dictated by ESPN."

ESPNU, which airs more than 300 events per year, has a contract with the NCAA through 2012-13 to show parts of 10 NCAA Championship events, including softball, men's and women's volleyball, baseball and women's basketball. ESPNU has deals with several conferences, although not currently with the Western Athletic Conference.

Oceanic will begin carrying ESPNU on Friday on digital channel 219, according to Santos.

McNamara said "they are really evolving as a network, so it is hard to know what amount of UH programming may end up on the network, but certainly now that it is going to be available in the state there will be some interest in seeing what can happen."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.