Football attendance numbers up from 2013 season
A review of the announced game-by-game attendance figures at Central Michigan University football games in 2014 suggests more people attended games this season.
However, the announced figures will likely be different from the actual paid attendance numbers that CMU Athletics submits to the NCAA.
Kelly/Shorts Stadium hosted an average of 16,306 people during a six-home-game span in 2014, according to the department.
Just as it did last year, the university will conduct an internal audit of 2014 attendance figures, signed by President George Ross, and submit the results to the NCAA in February 2015.
CMU’s average home game attendance over the last five years is 16,940, compared to 18,360 at Western Michigan University and 6,628 at Eastern Michigan University.
The largest crowd, 25,531, at Kelly/Shorts Stadium this fall showed up on Sept. 13. when the Chippewas hosted Syracuse University.
CMU’s lowest attendance figure was 7, 689 on Nov. 15 when the Chippewas played Miami (Ohio).
Craig Willey, associate athletic director, said there are a number of factors that boosted CMU’s attendance in 2014.
“Having a marquee Atlantic Coast Conference program like Syracuse and our rival Western Michigan at home obviously helped us,” Willey said.
The movement of the CMU student section, Willey said, was one the biggest factors in the increase.
“We were also able to drop our single-game ticket price,” he said. “We always struggle with back-to-back home games like we had with Miami (Ohio) and WMU.”
The NCAA Division I requires that a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision, average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home football games on a two-year rolling basis.
According to 2013 game-by-game announced attendance figures, CMU averaged 13,223 people each game, during five home games last season.
The 2013 football paid attendance summary sent to the NCAA states that CMU averaged 15,332.6 people during the same five home games. Students averaged 3,064 in paid attendance in 2013, accounting for 19.98 percent of the total.
Dave Heeke, CMU athletic director commented on the more than 2,000 person gap between announced an actual paid attendance in April 2014.
“"It is one component that many institutions across the country have to wrestle with," Heeke said. "Our feeling is, let's make sure we don’t have to worry about that so our focus can be on trying to attract people to come to the game to build our fan base year-to-year, not just game-to-game or over one season."
Heek also suggested last spring that member schools do not need supervision from the NCAA when it comes to drawing a crowd.
"Does it matter if you have no one at your game, or 15,000, or 110,000?" Heeke asked. "Does that somehow deem that you shouldn’t play football at this school because you can't reach 15,000? If the school makes the decision to play football, why should it matter? It's their decision how they want to manage the game and what they think their expectation is and what makes it a viable program"
The recent television deal between the Mid-American Conference and ESPN is another factor to be considered by the department when attempting to market CMU football games.
Willey said the stadium’s atmosphere on game day is something that cannot be appreciated merely on television.
“It obviously and definitely has an impact on our gates,” Willey said. “We can’t really do anything about that. That’s really a national issue. Even our power conferences have this issue. It’s great to be able to get our product out to a national audience. There is value in that.”
