You have to understand how much that shut-out cost EMU. To do that, you have to revisit the following University Diaries posts:
1. The post pointing out that “virtually no one shows up to watch” games which cost EMU millions to put on.
2. The post pointing out that
NCAA rules stipulate a school must average 15,000 fans per home football game to remain in Division I. Eastern Michigan, which averaged 6,401 fans per home game in 2010, uses $150,000 from a distribution contract with Pepsi to purchase tickets from itself at a rate of $3 apiece to remain NCAA compliant.
3. The post quoting an EMU finance professor saying
“We’re down to 57 percent regular faculty, and the other 43 percent are lecturers and part time. Searches are being held back, and I’m unhappy that they spend so much money on athletics and not academics. It’s important that we have full time faculty…Over the last few years, the budget for academics was cut by four million dollars. They need new programming. They redid the football stadium before they redid the academic buildings. … The football coach makes more than the president.”
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UD calls football the freak show that ate the American university.
At EMU, you can actually watch the process of digestion.
September 13th, 2014 at 1:29PM
All the same, universities continue to volunteer to be digested (or to ride the python??) Case in point: Presbyterian, a relatively small university in South Carolina that sent its football team to DeKalb to be schooled by Northern Illinois, one of the programs that Eastern Michigan (and Massachusetts) wish to emulate.
Never mind that Presbyterian came out with the 3 in a 55-3 score. The players gained experience that served them well against Furman.
And never mind that the same sort of cutbacks in academics have been going on at Northern Illinois. Headquarters trimmed the faculty to a size suitable for a 16,000 student university a few years ago, yet their latest worry is a 500 student drop in enrollments to around 20,000. Must be the student fee moneys to support the football program are more desirable than, oh, ensuring students can complete their classes.
But keeping up with Bowling Green or staying ahead of the directional Michigans comes first.