And yet I guarantee that every Sunbelt team (and all but a few elite Power 5 programs) are losing their shirts on football. So who's doing it "wrong" and who's doing it "right?" Perhaps MAC schools have their priorities a little more in line than these other conferences/schools. I'm okay with watching this level of quality when we play programs of similar caliber. Isn't that really what college sports are supposed to be about?

Exactly!

Interesting, if you look at many of the MAC and G5s, you can see deduct that there is a lot of covering of operating losses with fees and general budget.

Thanks for supporting the athletes, OBCF1.

I call bullshit.

The $ savings on 20 schollies won't account for the the loss of TV, playoff and buyout game revenue. and believe it or not, as small as it is already, our ticket revenue would take a hit as well.

We'd still rely on student fees to support the full athletic department.

Interesting topic. When I read the first post, my immediate thought was "because they want to."

I wonder how they are fairing enrollment-wise. I would not be surprised to see they are doing just fine, if not growing.

"live" streaming still relies on "live" viewership. the primo slots will still be saturday afternoon but there will still be a need for weeknight content, andn I think the mid-majors will still see the benefit of exclusive, if inconvenient time slots. the medium will change, but I don't think the need to fill time will change that much.

Edit: subscribing to more than three or four streaming services is starting to get expensive in its own right. cable and satellite companies made their bed in that regard by being dicks and overcharging and !@#$!! the !@#$# of the disneys/espns of the world, forcing people to seek alternative entertainment. I think, or at least hope, this may start to balance back out as cable/sat will be forced to adapt or die, which might mean becoming reasonable (i.e. consistent, fair pricing rather than early promotions followed by unsustainable price hikes).

Most MAC stadiums are empty in November, except maybe us sometimes and Toledo? I think we're already doing it by having our best game get picked for highest viewership.

Also, I think coaches accept, but mostly hate, made for TV early conference matchups. No one wants to play such an important game before they know what they have, or have figured out what all the buttons do.

Again, thanks for doing as little as you can.

DFC, your comment got my curiosity up and since I'm retired and have nothing better to do with my time I checked into the last three full seasons where MAC teams played home games on Saturdays in November (pre-Thanksgiving week). Here's their home attendance for October and November, with a couple late September games. I'll let the statisticians make what they want of this, but with a few exceptions there is drop-off in attendance during November and there's usually little difference in attendance between weekdays and Saturdays in November. Of course, some of these figures are likely to be padded to meet NCAA requirements to stay in D1A.

Akron 2021: Sat Oct 2 vs Ohio – 12,616; Sat Oct 23 vs Buffalo – 8,638; Tues Nov 2 vs BSU – 7,683; Sat Nov 20 vs Kent – 8,879

EMU 2019: Sat Oct 12 vs BSU – 17,852; Sat Oct 19 vs WMU – 20,528; Sat Nov 2 vs Buffalo – 16,017; Fri Nov 29 vs Kent – 13,444

Kent 2019: Sat Sep 21 vs BG – 19,700; Sat Oct 26 vs MOFO – 8,455; Thu Nov 14 vs Buffalo – 8,450; Sat Nov 23 vs BSU – 8,825

BG 2019: Sat Oct 12 vs Toledo – 19,199; Sat Oct 19 vs CMU – 15,100; Sat Nov 2 vs Akron – 12,133; Tue Nov 19 vs Ohio – 9,715

CMU 2019: Sat Oct 5 vs EMU – 15,238; Sat Oct 12 vs NMSU – 15,764; Sat Nov 2 vs NIU – 10,438; Fri Nov 29 vs Toledo – 9,101

BSU 2019: Sat Oct 19 vs Toledo – 15,113; Sat Oct 26 vs Ohio – 5,572; Sat Nov 16 vs CMU – 7,249; Fri Nov 29 vs MOFO – 7,155

EMU 2018: Sat Sep 29 vs NIU – 14,779; Sat Oct 13 vs Toledo – 17,998; Sat Oct 27 vs Army – 22,627; Sat Nov 3 vs CMU – 13,468; Sat Nov 10 vs Akron – 12,403

CMU 2018: Sat Oct 6 vs Buffalo – 14,044; Sat Oct 13 vs BSU – 10,255; Sat Oct 20 vs WMU – 10,097; Sat Nov 10 vs BG – 8,041

Akron 2018: Sat Oct 6 vs MOFO – 22,437; Sat Oct 27 vs CMU – 17,582; Thu Nov 1 vs NIU – 16,401; Sat Nov 17 vs BG – 17,742

Talk about getting a lot of love, tune in ESPN's GameDay show and see how not only App State but the entire SBC is getting a ton of love and along with that exposure. Something the MAC overall in its current state will not see. Great for the SBC and sad for the MAC. All that "stability" is reaping zero for the MAC.

I am moving quickly toward the idea of the MAC and Ohio dropping to FCS in football. Watching MAC teams attempting to compete at the higher level has been frustrating. I don’t think this Ohio team could win an FCS Conference championship, right now. While the Sun Belt has arrived. The MAC just doesn’t belong.

bullshit. just because we aren't doing it now doesn't mean we can't. we beat and at least competed with plenty of P5 schools in recent decades. Get the right coach (or this one get better) and good things happen.

Right now, however, we do suck. That was embarrassing today.

I’ll just see myself out.