This is entirely believable. Ohio led the league in attendance, but also we've seen much higher ticket prices in recent years. Schaus doesn't seem to be afraid to try some things like $35 for Marshall, unlike prior years where we saw tickets going at deep discounts, even against BCS teams like U. Conn.

By contrast, the article that Wes linked us to is of no use at all. Revenue up 35%? Sounds nice, but means nothing without some absolute numbers along with it. Suppose EMU reported a 35% increase, their revenue would still be near zero because 135% of nothing is still nothing.

As another comparison point, here are 2008 ticket revenues for some other non-AQ teams:
U.Conn      $11.6m
Fresno State $9.1m
Memphis      $8.66m
Hawaii       $8.55m
USF          $6.72m
New Mexico   $6.57m
ECU          $5.88m
Cincinnati   $4.95m
Marshall     $4.40m

If Ohio could get ticket revenue in the $3-4m range, they might be attractive to some other conferences, should they ever decide to move.

They have about as much in common with the MAC as they do with most of the CAA.  They would lose rivalries with Richmond and W&M, but the rest of the league is Towson ,Delaware, Villanova,Stony Brook, Albany, Rhode Island, NH & Maine.  So if they're in a division with UMass, Buffalo, Akron, Kent, Fiami & Ohio (until we leave), they're no worse off.  Probably CMU, WMU & NIU are the only MAC teams farther away than NH & Maine, but they would only travel to one of those schools every 2-3 years on average.  They go to either NH or Maine every other year anyway.  And for MAC teams, they're closer to most than UMass.

As for hoops, how worse can their allure be than BSU & NIU have been the past few years?  I doubt they'll be a full member anyway.

Well, I'm guessing that football ticket sales averages about $200-250k a game, now. Games like Marshall may hit $300-350,000, but some of the mid-week games are a lot lower. Figure 6 home games, and football ticket revenue may be $1.3m or so. Add in Basketball and Volleyball tickets, and I'd think you're over $2m.

Let's say they get to the point where football sells out every game, all on a season ticket basis (meaning that all tickets are still being sold, even for mid-week games). After figuring in the student tickets, they might sell 16,000 a game. Let's say they get prices up to the point where they average $25 a tickets, the football ticket revenue would hit $2.4m on it's own. Then, with other sports, you should hit $3m in total tickets. At that point it might be time to expand Peden, but I'm not sure Ohio could ever get to that point in the MAC.

In the meantime, we do know that Ohio's attendance leads the MAC, and that Ohio has been moving to higher ticket prices, so it's clear that Ohio's overall ticket revenue has to be tops in the MAC.


I doubt they plan to ever take them as high as OSU, but I did notice the price for Marshall last year was more like $35. By contrast I seem to remember some $6 tickets for U.Conn a few years ago. Thus, even if face amounts don't go up a lot, the overall average should rise.

This guy is saying they're moving to C-USA.

I think the C-USA rumor comes from a loud-mouthed QB recruit.  Whether he knows what he's talking about is anyone's guess. 

Each time I read a sweeping generalization about a university's purported excellence, I am reminded of one of my long-held beliefs. To wit, many if not most schools have programs that are genuinely superior. And those same schools have programs that are mediocre. I arrived at that belief after studying at SHS, Ohio, Marshall Law and Stanford's GSB. In that experience, what typically led to academic superiority or mediocrity was the individual faculty member or group of them within a particular program. Even at Stanford with its stratospheric endowment and budgets where I met some spectacular faculty, I also met a couple dud profs who clearly should have been somewhere else doing something else.

This gets tricky, because many of us pay for membership in the OBC in order to be eligible for certain seating areas for both football and basketball.  While this isn't counted as "ticket revenue," it really is part of the total ticket package that we buy.  Given the high number of season ticket sales the last couple of years, I would not be surprised if this netted a few million more.  

If you look at full university profile, it's hard to argue Buffalo not being the strongest. They're an AAU member and have an assortment of professional schools that gives O$U a run for it's money.