MAC Football Attendance Issues....

If you are a a fan of football at this level, I'm sure you are aware that there are attendance rules that determine whether teams can stay in the FBS or be relegated to FCS.  In fact, a long time ago, BG actually competed for part of a season in I-AA.

We have also been present as teams, including BG, have pulled various shenanigans and games to make the attendance requirement.  The Ball State student paper recently wrote a pretty solid piece on this subject that I wanted to recommend to you.  Titled "An Empty Rule" is details some of the things MAC teams have done to skirt the NCAA's attendance requirement...usually involving having a donor buy a big block of tickets no one intends to use or playing a Big 10 team in a neutral stadium as a "home" game as BG did when it played Wisconsin at the Browns Stadium.

Coach Clawson is quoted as saying that the ESPN games in November hurt attendance.  And while there is no doubt that they do, here is where I would quibble with Coach Clawson and the author of the piece (Teddy Cahill) who are both relative newcomers to the MAC.  Again, the weeknight games are not good for attendance.  At the same time, the attendance issues in the MAC have been endemic and stretch back waaaaaay farther than the ESPN contract.  The attendance requirement has been an issue for the MAC for as long as it has been in place, which goes back somewhere around 30 years.  I can remember plenty of frigid November Saturdays at the Doyt where the stands were as empty as they are on Tuesdays now.

The MAC no longer puts attendance figures on its website, at least that I could find.  However, some quick work with a spreadsheet allowed me to get the numbers.  Keeping in mind that these are ANNOUNCED attendance figures, subject to whatever they might be (but surely not solely the counting of actual people in the stadium), the MAC averaged 23,470 fans per home game.  Only EMU and Kent finished below 15,000.

Interestingly, six teams in the MAC finished between 15,000 and 16,000.  Two of the teams--Ball State and BG--finished between 15,000 and 15,100.  (BG averaged 15,006).  Coincidence?