What if a school held a football game and no one showed up?-OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but let’s just say a WNBA game sees better attendance numbers than a Ball State University football game. It’s almost too easy making light of our football team, seeing as they have been a running joke at the university over the past few years.-Well, there’s a new joke out there — one that’s not all that funny.If an average of 15,000 people don’t attend the four home games we have scheduled this year, then Ball State football will be saying goodbye to Division A status and saying hello to Division AA next year. Here’s the not-too-humorous punch line.Falling to Division AA status means the football team would have to drop out of the Mid-American Conference, pay fees to out-of-conference opponents for breaking contracts and lose a nice chunk of revenue for the school.So, what’s the problem, Ball State? Usually, college football should appeal to at least 15,000 in a city, especially in a school with a student population of more than 18,000.But it just doesn’t. The school has tried to curb the attendance problem before with things like special promotions at the game and, most notably, the recent addition of fixed stadium lights. There is a certain prominence to a night game, one that would surely attract a decent number of people to a football game. There’s one catch, though, to using the stadium lights: scheduling games so they take place at night. Simple equation. Stadium lights plus dark equals exciting night game that draws people.-So, why is there only one night game — when Bowling Green visits us on Sept. 10 — in the entire schedule? Movable stadium lights used to be brought in for the night game we had each season; they were set up once, then taken down, and we’d call it an evening when the game was over. The addition of fixed lighting gave the impression that we might have more than one night game, which might let us dodge the Division AA bullet for another year. For example, couple at least two night games with the usual strong Homecoming game attendance, and we’d more than likely keep our Division A status.Oh, yeah, speaking of Homecoming, good thing it’s going to be around three weeks to a month later than it usually is on a crucial year like this. The weather will be cooler, and the football team will have another few weeks to show off how unimpressive they are and remind every Muncie resident and student just how much they ... well ... suck. It seems Ball State is banking on the football team actually being good this year to draw in the attendance figures we need. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t look like it will be the case, as there has been nothing to get excited about, roster-wise, with the team so far.We’ll be 1-4, and by the week Homecoming rolls around, no one will care about the team. Just like always. Until critical moves are made within the team, nothing will change. Adding a communications center to the field won’t help anything, either.Ball State football is looking like it will be just another joke in 2005 and for years to come, becoming a bigger laughing stock when we fall to Division AA next year.Oh well, it’s all about men’s basketball this year, anyway.
Write to Ryan at
rjsmith@bsu.edu
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