2011 College Football Attendance Figures

Both years we had seven home games plus road games at PSU and OSU.

Theoretically the biggest numbers would be drawn by playing eight home games plus Big Ten road games at Penn State, Ohio State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, then playing in the Rose Bowl.

That would be a really rough schedule but would probably produce a season total of 1,350,000 or so, and since playing in the Rose Bowl would probably mean we played in the B1G championship game as well, that would add another 25-30 fans to the total.

I bet we won't top the 2011 numbers next fall, road games at Minnesota and Purdue (our last two visits to both have drawn <60k) will drag down the average.

English has the program on the right track. I would love to see a competitive EMU squad

Playing midweek games actually hurts EMU's attendance numbers.  Perhaps the ESPN exposure will pay off in long run attendance figures, but it's a challenge to get people there when some students are still in class and the nine-to-fivers are just getting out of work. It's a challenging spot for the MAC-type sorts. 

The fact that English took them to 6-6 (with two 1AA wins, I know) is a success.

NCAA Football needs to divide into 8 directional conferences. N, E, S, W, NE, SE, NW, SW...period. It would still be off geographically due to the number of teams in the east vs. the west, but it would be SO much better.

8 Conferences, 12 teams per conference puts you at 96 teams. That's PLENTY, you're still going to have bottom feeders, but that eliminates about 24 of those schools that really have NO BUSINESS being in 1A football. It still allows you to be inclusive as the NCAA claims to be. We all know there aren't 96 teams that can compete, but having 4 conferences of 12 teams is too unrealistic.

8 Conferences...12 teams. 8 Team playoff. If you're ranked in the top 4 of the final BCS standings, you can still get a bid to the playoff even if you don't win your conference. This eliminates a 1-loss Alabama team from being left out over a 3-loss conference winner from the Northeast Conference.

Everyone else go to bowls like normal.

I hate to defend EMU in this because I think a little over 4,000 per game is pathetic especially when you consider that EMU had the best season they've had in a long time.  However, of all the issues facing the NCAA, attendence figures should be one of the lower ones.  Instead of bitch about attendence how about oversigning?  Or maybe the pay for play that Cam Newton sort of brought up?  Maybe the swirling allegations of Ohio State?  All of those things have a more direct impact on competitiveness than how many people were sitting at Rynearson Stadium.

Yes, I think it was sad as I was sitting on the sidelines and looking at an almost full one half of the stadium and a pretty much empty other side of the stadium but there's not much that can be done about that.  I think attendence at the games is more of an issue for EMU to address rather than the NCAA (and in a way they sort of did by getting Pepsi to buy a number of tickets to get sales to 15,000/game).

But looking at the games at Toledo and CMU I went to, EMU definately has a long way to go.

This topic was covered in an annarbor.com article from October. EMU has been selling tickets to Pepsi in bulk to make sure it stays above the 15,000 average needed to remain an FBS team. Every other year is an NCAA "count" year—last year was one, this year wasn't.

In fact, for the past decade EMU has kept its FBS status by selling tens of thousands of tickets to Pepsi —one of the corporate sponsors for the athletic department— during NCAA count years, which are every other year.

Last year, an NCAA count year, average attendance was about 6,400. To reach the 15,000-attendance level required for an FBS team, EMU sold Pepsi 50,000 tickets at $3 apiece. Tickets are normally sold at $9 apiece. EMU students receive free entry.

EMU also sold tickets to Pepsi in 2008 and 2006. Both years were NCAA count years.

If I remember correctly, they took somewhat of a hit for inflated attendence figures.  So I think they are reporting actual people that attended the games.  Although I'd swear that it seemed like more people attended at the Western, Ball State and Buffalo games.  For the Western game, it seemed like the home side was full which would mean about 15,000.

Teams only have to hit 15,000+ once every two years, and they can use either actual attendance or paid attendance to hit 15,000.  I'd guess last year they used University/Donor/Pepsi funds to buy up the unwanted tickets to hit the 15,000 mark. If this year's meager number stands, they'll have to do whatever it takes to hit 15,000 for the 2012 season to stay in the NCAA's good graces.

EDIT: Too Slow

That makes sense. I thought it was odd.

And they don't dominate the Bay Area like we do in Southeastern Michigan, so if they aren't on campus and loading up on students/berkley people they won't do as well as say Mich at Ford Field

UCLA plays in a stadium quite a haul from their campus. Getting to Pasadena from Westwood can be a joke.  As for USC, the Coliseum is in a terrible location and was rundown when I use to go to Raider games there.

I think it's been said before but I'll say it again.  EMU is in a tough spot.  They aren't too far from one of the most hallowed places in College Football, so they have to compete with that on game days.  I would say that a good chunk of EMU's student population comes from the Metro Detroit area so on weekends those folks head home.   With a few exceptions, EMU Football hasn't been competitive since the 40's (the stadium is named after that coach).  So they face an uphill battle to get people to come to the games.  Just before I was a freshman, they would have raffles and stuff to get people to come but I don't think that bore fruit until 1987 (my freshman year) when they went to the Cal Bowl.

The couple of times that I've gone to CMU games, they seem to do well in getting people to come to the games but then again, they don't have much to compete with.  I'm not sure about WMU.  It would be nice if EMU didn't have to resort to tricks to get there figures up but I don't know.

...but in a couple years they will DOMINATE the ACC in attendance.

/onlyhalfjokingunfortunately