Originally Posted by Chris R
The DI minimum attendance requirement is something like 13-15K average. Many MAC schools do not get 850 people in the stands for a Tuesday night game on ESPN2 in the middle of November. I have personally sat in front of my TV and counted every human on the opposite side stands (including traveling band members) and gotten less than 200 several times. In-game footage of the home sideline grandstand was not much better.
These schools are papering the house worse than Wright State basketball. One of two things are happening: they have just enough whales to buy cheap tickets to keep the schools DI eligible when there are no bodies to fill the seats, or people honestly bought tickets and decided picking the lint out of their belly button all night was more entertaining and elected to stay home.
Either scenario is highly problematic for these athletic departments. I watched a Miami OH home game a year or two ago and counted fewer than 150 actual bodies there -- not including the band that was required to show up. When Big Ben was there, they got big crowds and Miami football was THE sport there. Now their entire athletic department is in tatters. They now see themselves as a hockey school -- and even that's been down lately. They used to have a good mens soccer program. That, and mens tennis and wrestling were eliminated about 15yrs ago.
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I'm hesitant to post this because I don't know the exact details of it, but I THINK the MAC has some sort of deal worked out with the Big Ten in their scheduling agreement that, technically speaking and ONLY for the purposes of attendance, the game at the Big Ten school is a "home game" for the MAC school. In other words, they can count that game as part of their average home attendance to get to the required 15,000 minimum.
