The drop they are talking about in student attendance and no shows at those Big Ten is not that extreme. A lot of students are fine with making one football game a year. Ohio doesn't charge for student tickets and the students are right behind the home bench. Its an open market for the entertainment dollar when anyone at the click of a button on the smartphone find 20 other things going on locally that weekend. Whatever is going on can't just be okay it has to be GREAT to get people showing up. Ohio has done a good job at developing the game day atmosphere to the point were it feels likes your attending a pro baseball game. I don't know who else in the MAC who has the nice intimate but exciting football atmosphere. Kent State games maybe.

Eleven D-III teams average more in attendance than Eastern Michigan.

EMU has a nice stadium, too, and great parking, though I'm told that if as many as 8,000 showed up, the lots would overflow, but that never happens...

I gather it's primarily a commuter school, and the students aren't around on weekends, and that hurts their attendence.

Nice that Akron is selling more tickets. But more fans in Infocision seats? I might have seen larger crowds at Walsh U games (transitioning from NAIA to NCAA Div. II).

In order to remain FBS, over rolling 2 year periods, each school has to be able to show an average attendance of 15,000 at home games, or every other year they need to actually be over 15,000 average for that year. To accomplish that they get some business to buy up huge blocks of tickets, say 10,000 per game (at a steep discount, naturally), and then the business can do with the tickets as they see fit - donate them to charities, hand them out on street corners, flush them, whatever. Then the school, using the "tickets sold" method of reporting attendance shows >15k per game. Perhaps Akron was up to that this year. Looking specifically at Akron's numbers, the average was 17,850, and last year the average was 9,275.  That makes their two-year average 13,562, still not enough to be in compliance, using the 2-year average method, but since one year is over 15,000, they should be OK, if I understand the rule.

UMass for sure had that problem in 2013. Note that, even 90 miles from campus, they amazingly managed to average just barely over 15,000, avoiding probation....but, how many were really at the games? I doubt it was close to that.

As for EMU, I don't know how they aren't on probation for this already. 2012 was even worse than 2013, and EMU averaged only 3,923 at games. Why is EMU even trying to be FBS? According to this article, every other year, EMU sells thousands of tickets to Pepsi at $3 each to maintain its status. In 2010 they apparently sold Pepsi over 50,000 tickets. Unlike the other schools, however, they must report the real attendance in their box scores, but send the inflated numbers including the sales to Pepsi to the NCAA.

What exactly is the benefit for these businesses in buying thousands of tickets that will ultimately go unused?

Five years of attendance numbers for the MAC:

         2013     2012     2011     2010     2009      Avg
Ohio    20,672   21,844   19,891   19,046   17,947   19,880
Toledo  18,467   20,552   22,157   19,333   16,285   19,359
NIU     20,669   20,877   15,209   17,760   14,889   17,881
WMU     17,347   14,579   19,985   14,255   20,330   17,299
CMU     13,244   16,036   15,291   20,448   19,702   16,940
Buffalo 22,736   13,242   15,890   12,981   15,960   16,162
Kent    17,018   17,880   11,587   16,152   15,512   15,630
Miami   15,935   15,333   16,174   15,519   11,810   14,954
BG      15,258   15,632   15,007   13,306   14,044   14,649
Akron   17,850    9,275   15,734   10,185   17,382   14,085
Ball St 15,131   12,930   15,064    8,947   10,888   12,592
EMU      4,051    3,923    4,267   15,885    5,016    6,628
UMass   15,830   10,901

A few of these schools have a suspicious pattern, falling well under 15k every other year, and then magically, in the alternate years, popping to just over the 15k minimum. Buffalo, until this year was like that, as was Akron, Ball State, and EMU. I suspect there is a whole lot of bulk ticket buying going on across the MAC, not just at EMU.

I also note that only two schools, Ohio and Toledo, have been safely over 15k every year, and that Ohio has had solid attendance every year, and is still growing, though 2013 was off a little. I suspect that years when they don't have a home game on the day after thanksgiving will have higher attendance than years when they do.