Is attendance an issue for MAC football programs?

For the second straight season, the MAC had the lowest average turnout for home and neutral site games of any FBS conference.

In 2013, the MAC averaged 16,739 per game in a total of 74 games played. That number was 3,120 less than the average attendance of Sun Belt football games. That number dropped to 15,431 in 2014, a loss of 1,308 fans per game. Despite playing 76 MAC home and neutral site games in 2014, overall attendance dropped by just over 100,000 people overall (1,238,660 to 1,172,750).

In 2013, Buffalo was the highest attended program with 22,736 per game but that number dropped to 20,403, a decrease of 2,333 per game. That is a loss of 14,000 total fans from 2013 to 2014. Northern Illinois saw a significant drop from 20,669 per game in 2013 to 13,563 in 2014. That drop resulted in 35,531 fewer fans attending NIU games in the 2014. season.

Ohio was the only other MAC school to average 20,000+ in 2013 and actually stayed nearly even with a drop from 20,672 per game to 20,515 per game. Despite the drop, Ohio earned the title of highest average attendance in the MAC.

Toledo was one of 4 MAC programs to actually see their attendance rise from 2013 to 2014, along with Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Massachusetts. Toledo rose from 18,467 per game to 19,548, an increase of 81 fans per game in 2014. UMass jumped from 15,830 per game in 2013 to 16,088 in 2014, a rise of 258 fans per game and 1,546 total fans.

Central and Eastern Michigan were on the high end of the spectrum as they were listed in the top 30 schools nationally in attendance increase in the 2014 season. Central Michigan earned the 20th spot nationally with a jump from 13,224 in 2013 to 16,306 in 2014, an increase of 3,082 per contest. That increase the overall season attendance for CMU from 66,119 to 97,838, a significant increase of 31,719 fans on the year. To put that in perspective, the jump in attendance is roughly equivalent to an extra two home games worth of fans for the Chippewas.

Even more drastic was the jump for Eastern Michigan, the third highest jump of any team in the nation. In 2013, EMU brought in only 4,051 fans per game, the lowest number of any team in the nation. In 2014, EMU jumped to 15,025 per game, an increase of 10,974 per game. Only Texas A&M and UAB had higher increases. The overall increase from 20,255 total in 2013 to 75,127 in 2014 is roughly equivalent to 3.33 games worth of fans with the 2014 average attendance.

Bowling Green, 15,258 to 15,228, and Miami OH, 15,935 to 15,906, saw minuscule drops in attendance that are easily explainable but are not significant enough to look into..

Kent State and Western Michigan were both hit hard in attendance with both seeing over 1,700 fewer fans per game in 2014. Western Michigan brought in 17,347 per game in 2013 but saw that number drop to 15,625 in 2014 despite earning a bowl berth in 2014. That drop was just over 8,000 overall fans from 86,733 to 78,124. Kent State's drop from 17,018 to 13,544 had a lot to do with the overall competitiveness of the program. In 2014, Kent State went 2-9 and were outscored by 139 points. That lack of overall competitiveness is a good indicator for a drop of 3,474 fans per game.

The ugliest of the MAC schools in attendance were Akron and Ball State. Both programs had over 15,000 per game in 2013 but dropped to under 10,000 per game in 2014. Those are very worrisome numbers for any program. In 2013, Ball State put 15,131 fans in the stands per game, putting them right in the middle of the MAC in attendance. One year later, Ball State's attendance dropped to 9,389 per game, a drop of 5,742 fans per game. Much of that drop was due to a drop in performance on the field but there the 2014 home schedule was not as enticing as the previous season's home schedule. It would make sense for Ball State to move back closer to the 15,000 range in 2015.

Akron's drop in attendance is more troublesome as the team has shown improvement on the field under Terry Bowden and in a 5-7 season in 2013 averaged 17,850 fans per game. In 2014, during another 5-7 season, the Zips dropped to 9,170 fans per game, a drop of 8,680 per game. This significant drop was over 50,000 overall fans on the season and forces Akron to question whether Bowden should stay as head coach or if the fans are already tired of him.