HONOLULU -- Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie stated Thursday it's "so stupid" that the cash-strapped state pays millions to host the Pro Bowl once the money could be utilized for education.

Abercrombie said he opposes a deal the state created in 2009 to pay $4 million per video game for the rights to hold the NFL's all-star game in Hawaii this and next year.

"You cannot do things like give 4 million bucks to a $9 billion football business and not give any cash to kids," Abercrombie stated as he announced early-childhood schooling and wellness plans. "You've acquired this spectacle of these multimillionaires and billionaires out there arguing about how they will divide it up, and then they arrive and inquire us to bribe them with $4 million to possess a scrimmage out here in paradise.

"We've acquired to get our values straight and our priorities straight," he said.

The Pro Bowl returned to Aloha Stadium this year after it had been played in Miami in 2010, breaking up a 30-year run in Hawaii in which every game was a sellout.

The first-year Democratic governor and former longtime congressman stated the NFL can ship the video game back to Florida if it continues to require Hawaii to spend to keep it in the islands.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello stated the league has no comment on Abercrombie's statements.

Tourism officials said this January's Pro Bowl attracted 17,000 guests to the state, generated $28.15 million in visitor investing and produced $3.07 million in state taxes from people who traveled to go to the game.

Previous Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, who negotiated contracts to keep the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, stated the game's increase towards the economic climate assists assistance federal government applications such as schooling.

"It creates jobs, it's an economic revenue-generator, it offers good impressions throughout the us," said Hannemann, who ran against Abercrombie final year and it is now president for the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association. "Honolulu is a great sports town. Sports tourism is very important to us."

But Abercrombie dismissed the economic impact of the game, saying newly enacted same-sex civil unions will do just as much to bring visitors to the state.

"Oh please. We'll get more out of civil unions in a weekend then we'll get out of those guys," he stated. "We're going to market. Don't worry about marketing."

Abercrombie used the Pro Bowl as an example of ways the government could redirect money to underfunded childhood programs.

He declared Thursday he's reallocating $3 million annually from tobacco settlement funds to revive a state program providing in-home assistance to mothers of young kids.