Something I was thinking about last night, and a little earlier in the season relates to the schedule in the MAC in terms of when it begins and ends. Since going to the 18 game schedule, the league sees most of the last game, if not the last two games, being played before light crowds and no students. This year I noted that several conferences, including the B1G, Big East, and Horizon played their first conference games around Dec 27-28, and then the second game on Dec 31st/Jan 1st.

I like this strategy because it allows for two games over the week that a large portion of the country has a lot of time off work. It also allows them to space out games a little more in the later third of the conference season when fatigue is starting to mount, along with midterms, right before conference tournament play. It also might allow for Senior Day/Night to be played in front of students, and hopefully a bigger crowd before Spring Break kicks in.

I did a little homework over the lunch hour here, and noted that half the MAC, including Ohio, has spring break from this Friday March 3rd, through the following week. It HAS to have an affect on how many students end up in Cleveland. The schools that don't are unsurprisingly three of the schools that have the best fan turnouts in Cleveland - UB, Kent, Akron. They have spring break 2-3 weeks later.

Also, off the topic of scheduling, those three schools also don't have commencement until mid May instead of the first of May, roughly speaking. I've found it to be odd that the new semester schedule has moved Ohio into a mode of having commencement so early in the spring, while about half of the rest of the conference has it either on the 13th, or the 20th. I don't know the reasons behind that, but it's unfortunate that students don't get more of the month of May in Athens.

I do remember that when I was a student. The only home game I missed that year was the Toledo game because it fell in December. I was unable to convince my mother that I should come to the extended family Christmas function following the game. ;)


I'm not a big fan of that plan, but I like it a lot better than Senior Day occurring with no students in the arena's. The MAC needs to do a little better on this stuff. I know TV contracts have a bearing on this, but one would think it could be worked out.

Personally I would be a bigger fan of schools overhauling the scheduling format where all league games are on Saturday. In watching the soccer culture, putting your games on one day a week would be huge. Schedule your non-league's and extra conference games you can't get on a Saturday during the week when you need extra games. This is a pipedream, but it would put more value on the conference schedule and make those games worthwhile to the fans of each conference. I say this because of a discussion I was having about mid-week football and it's going to destroy the overall value of the MAC Rivalries because they are during the week and no one gives a hoot for them. I look at the same thing with basketball, especially as we are going to attempt to take on tournament ball in the state of Ohio when it's supposed to be our biggest game of the year. Maybe that would help reverse attendance numbers across the conference #novelconcept