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It was on https://www.uakron.edu/calendar/ But now... magically... they are back on the schedule. Weird. I've lurked on the board for years, and finally posted when I thought I had juicy information. Just like that, the university turned me into a liar!

https://www.wtol.com/article/sports/major-changes-coming-to-mid-american-conference/512-0e4f0d45-546b-432f-89a1-67a5a6d8fe3c Mac tournament canceled...

Thanks. My observations have been brilliantly articulated as usual... And wildly misinterpreted by some readers. Some things never change. Time away from watching the MAC in person and season tickets to a low to mid level ACC team has given me a healthy perspective on what could be possible at Akron. I'm certain a decent product on the field combined with a solid fan experience can go a long way to righting the ship for all MAClike schools. It really isn't hard. There isn't anything going on at a Wake Forest game that couldn't be done at Akron or any other MAC school in terms of game day experience. Schools like Akron are just focused on the wrong thing. Actually, their athletic directors are focused on the wrong thing.

I call it "The Building Process". Either way, here we are living in the national nightmare it created. It's not just Akron.

There was a nice sense of irony there. Thanks for noticing.

You have never seen 50,000 people at a Zips Football home game. If so, the media guide is wrong as I just checked. Biggest Rubber Bowl crowd was Sept. 20, 1969 – While on the way to matching UA’s best record ever, a 9-1 mark, breaking 32 UA records and finishing with the football team’s highest national ranking ever – third in the AP college division poll – the Zips upset favored Tampa, 40-0, before an Acme-Zip Game crowd of 42,869. Little All-American halfback Jack Beidleman scored four TDs to lead the UA attack. 50 years ago. Really. This is the basis of a logical discussion.

When was attendance good? 1971 Acme Zip game? (49 years ago... LOL) The glory years of Gerry Faust? How many of those tickets were paid for vs comped? Akron has not had legit attendance of over 15,000 butts in the seats for a season in... ever. Not in any way that would actually stand up in an audit. If paid attendance was over 15,000 there would be no fiscal crisis in athletics. Take out the bands and the team comps and the ticket dumps with the local schools and "free tickets" given to the students who actually pay for them with their student fees and there are less than 1,200 paid people per game on average for the games played in October and November. In all of your posts you still cannot give one sound business reason why Akron should be playing FBS football.

This is a really good point and central to what I have been concerned about as it relates to schools like ours for a few years. I would bet a lot of money your lack of interest didn't happen overnight. All of us have been given two scenarios by the morons who run our athletic departments. Fans can pick one or the other or both. Both are bad. The experiment has run it's course and the results are in and the current state of MAC football proves how disastrous things have become. Scenario one: Set up a schedule designed for early season failure and hope things turn around and you get to .500. Given the standings, this is a 50/50 bet. Heck, the highest number of wins by a MAC school last year was an uninspiring 8. The results drive fans away because of early season failure and little to hope for down the road positive possibilities. I don't blame a fan for losing focus. Scenario two: Enter into television contracts that make it almost impossible for some fans to attend games because of travel restrictions and those who are close enough can't go because of work restrictions, late season weather problems in the midwest or any number of reasonable excuses not to attend a college football game on a Tuesday/Wednesday night. Even the games at the good schools are not well attended on weeknight games so I'm not buying the argument anymore that winning will solve branding problems. The only conclusion any sane person can make is the athletic departments of these schools could care less about the average fan, enjoy making the schools they work for look like a joke on national television and could care less about winning or losing football games. The erosion of fan support has happened slowly, but it is no accident. There is a really good book called "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*$k". The book isn't about indifference or not caring about things. It is about accepting that life is a series of problems you have to solve daily and then basically you die. Dropping down a division isn't going to solve the problem of horrifically bad decision making on the part of schools like ours. Some just think our problems will be solved if we drop down. Some problems may be solved, but others are created at that point and they could be far worse than what we are currently experiencing. The best thing we can do is accept our failures and chart a new course that will surely bring different problems, but in fact may make the average fan of schools like ours more positive about supporting sports teams. We really need better long term thinking and the current crop of athletic directors being produced in this country simply are not capable of solving our problems and may in fact be the central problem. The best example I can give of problems never being solved is Warren Buffett. Are all of his problems solved because he has a pile of cash? Heck no. He has so many problems he has to have a team of executives he pays millions of dollars each to take some of the problem solving burden off of his shoulders so he can focus on 3-4 problems he can deal with.

I haven't seen this posted anywhere else - has anybody noticed that the University's official event calendar has the Youngstown State and U Mass games cancelled?