Audited numbers for the 2015-16 Central Michigan football season show the university is in compliance with NCAA Division I attendance requirements — a rule Director of Athletics Dave Heeke said he feels is “unneeded.”

“There’s this arbitrary number that’s out there. Why? What does it do?” he said. “Shouldn’t we just be able to play football if we want with no one in (the stadium)? I don’t care. Now, we’ve been forced to develop ways to meet that.”

CMU averaged 15,065 people in the stands at Kelly/Shorts Stadium this season, though the stadium has a capacity of 30,255. The NCAA Division I requires CMU, as a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision, to average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home football games on a two-year rolling basis.

Senior Associate Athletic Director of External Operations Craig Willey said CMU uses the paid attendance model, which states tickets must be sold for at least one-third of the highest regular established ticket price. Tickets do not have to be used on game day in order to be counted as a person who attended.

Tickets sold at less than one-third of the highest regular established price may be counted as paid attendance only if they are used for admission.

Sports marketing company IMG College also assists CMU in purchasing tickets to meet the attendance requirement. The company aggregates sponsorship and multimedia rights for universities, and has bought 2,032 CMU football tickets over the past two years — 859 in 2015 and 1,173 in 2014.

The number of tickets sold to IMG is determined year by year based on how sure CMU is to make the 15,000 mark. In 2013-14, CMU was heavily reliant on IMG College distributing 5,500 season tickets to stay compliant.

“I don’t think any ticket goes to waste," Willey said. "The partnership with IMG allows us the opportunity to purchase those tickets and (decide) how they are utilized. Is every ticket used? I don’t know. The key factor to the paid attendance model is once a ticket is sold, it is a countable ticket.”

In a Jan. 7 interview, Heeke said the department was going to meet the NCAA attendance requirement "any way we can.”

“There’s no restriction on if you have to put people in (the stadium), if you buy tickets or if a sponsor does it,” he said.

Heeke said there has been a lot of schools that haven’t averaged the 15,000 place marker, but have not been reprimanded by the NCAA.

“I haven’t seen anyone get kicked out of Division I football, yet,” he said. “There’s this great concern that if somebody doesn’t average 15,000, (the NCAA) is going to close the university down and they can’t play football. It’s never going to happen.”

Number breakdown

Audited attendance numbers showed a 45 percent decreasein the number of students this season compared to the total in 2014-15.

CMU averaged 15,066 in paid attendance for all six 2015-16 home games, 15,056 for six home games in 2014 and 15,333 for five home games in 2013.

This year — not counting members of the band — students accounted for 18 percent (16,399) of the 90,396 people who entered the gates of Kelly/Shorts Stadium. Last year, students accounted for 40 percent of the overall crowd.

Student attendance totaled 16,399 this season, less than half of the number from two seasons ago.

In 2013-14, student attendance totaled 34,773 for the season, which Willey called a "banner year from a numbers standpoint."

“Our fans are important, but at any one given time students usually make up the largest population in Kelly/Shorts Stadium," he said. "They bring a great atmosphere and competitive advantage and environment.”

The game with the highest student attendance this season was CMU vs. Oklahoma State on Sept. 3 when 5,115 students made up 29 percent of the entire 17,522 people attending. That number is 5,615 students less than the most student-attended game during the 2015 season — a Sep. 13 game against Syracuse with 10,469 students present.

CMU's Black Friday game on Nov. 27 was the lowest attended game with just 297 students making up 2.8 percent of the crowd.

Season ticket holders accounted for 19,379 tickets, while 51,038 individual game tickets were sold during the season. Season tickets earned $265,134 and individual game tickets grossed $448,984, which totals $714,118 for tickets sold this season.

Willey said the biggest variable affecting attendance — student and overall attendance — is weather.

“Look at the home opener against Oklahoma State. Leading up until kickoff we had torrential downpours,” Willey said. “(For) students, average walk-up fans and some season ticket holders, that’s when they are making their decision to come or not. We’ve truly had some pretty poor weather for our home games (this year).”

The audit shows a consistent decline in student attendance throughout the season, except for an uptake in students at the Thursday, Nov. 10 game against Toledo. Exactly 2, 268 students attended the mid-week game when just 1, 796 students attended the game prior against Buffalo on Oct. 17.

Lansing freshman wide receiver Damon Terry said large crowds — especially student crowds — has a positive effect on the team's performance. He said the Sep. 12 game against Monmouth, which CMU won 31-10, was the best game from an attendance standpoint.

“If the crowd contributes, we’ll be a lot better," Terry said. "Just support your school.”

Junior Claire Kupris said for her, the game is more of a social event than a sporting event.

"A lot of it has to do with, if I do stay at the games, is if my friends are staying too," she said. "If there’s not a huge student section, then I’m less likely to check (the game) out. When the student section is bigger, then I’m drawn to it and I’ll check it out more.”