What the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl has done for University of Hawai'i football, a new Hawai'i-based ESPN tournament could provide the same benefits for the Rainbow Warrior men's basketball program.

ESPN Regional Television, in conjunction with UH, has called a 10 a.m. Manoa campus press conference for today to announce a December men's basketball tournament to be hosted by UH and held around the same time as ERT's Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl.

The tournament is expected to begin in 2009. The Rainbow Classic, which enters its 45th year this season, is expected to remain but probably not in the current eight-team format or current Christmas period.

The Hawai'i Bowl was born in 2002, a year after the 9-3 Warriors were left out of the postseason NCAA bowl picture despite knocking off then-No. 9 Brigham Young in the regular-season finale. The advent of the Hawai'i Bowl has been credited with giving the UH program increased visibility in recruiting and validation as well as also enhancing the UH and WAC bottom lines.

Pete Derzis, senior vice president and general manager of ERT, attended Saturday's UH-Louisiana Tech football game but declined comment on the basketball tournament.

UH athletic director Jim Donovan was off-island and unavailable for immediate comment.

An ESPN-operated tournament involving UH could provide some of the same boosts for 'Bows basketball that has fallen on hard times of late. National exposure for UH basketball, key in recruiting, has been severely limited in recent years. But UH's participation in the inaugural "College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon" on Nov. 17 and an expanded WAC package as part of the conference's new TV deal with ESPN could help.

"This would be huge for UH — and Hawai'i," said a businessman with knowledge of the situation.

The project is apparently the brainchild of Donovan, who had said, upon taking the UH job in March, that he hoped to use his ESPN ties to the school's advantage. Donovan, a former UH associate athletic director, served as executive director of the Hawai'i Bowl for six years

A person familiar with the concept said it would be similar to the popular Maui Invitational, which is held in November. ESPN televises the Maui tournament but it is owned by the Kemper Group of Chicago.

With ESPN's backing and money it is thought the new tournament could attract much better fields than UH is currently getting for the Rainbow Classic and other events.

One reason for the reduced status of the Rainbow Classic and declining strength of the fields has been an absence of national television. The last time the Rainbow Classic was televised on ESPN was in 1997, when Hawai'i defeated No. 2 Kansas in the championship game.

Marquee programs and players want the exposure and without it the Rainbow Classic, once the elite holiday basketball stage among eight-team tournaments, has struggled to get high caliber fields.

ERT is the nation's largest syndicator of college sports events, producing nearly 1,000 events per year. It is also the production home for ESPNU, ESPN's 24-hour college network. In addition, ERT owns and operates five bowls.

In recent years ERT has expanded heavily into holiday basketball tournaments, adding events in Orlando, Fla., Anaheim, Calif. Charleston, S.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.