Begging for people to buy football tickets

A few years ago, I wrote a package of news articles about how much money it really cost lower-tier schools such as Marshall University to play in football bowl games. It's hard for schools that don't have megahuge fan bases to make money. To play in a bowl, you have to agree to buy a lot of tickets and re-sell them. Every seat you don't sell, you eat.

This comes from the AP today:

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (AP) — Bowling Green is hoping that Ohio State fans will help it avoid getting the bill for a bunch of unsold tickets for the Falcons’ bowl game in January.

The school is reaching out to fans traveling to New Orleans for the national championship game and asking them to think about going to see Bowling Green play the night before in nearby Mobile, Ala.

Bowling Green also is asking its supporters who can’t make it to the GMAC Bowl to buy tickets anyway and donate them to underprivileged children in Mobile.

Many bowl games require schools to sell a set number of tickets and cover the costs of those tickets that aren’t sold.

Bowling Green agreed to sell about 7,500 tickets for the GMAC Bowl at $45 apiece.Three years ago, the Falcons played in the game and sold just 1,500 tickets and had to pay about $280,000 for unsold tickets. ...

You can read more here if you like.

One thing my series did was lift the myth that football pays a lot of bills at Marshall. In truth, in the days of the Mid-American Conference, Marshall athletics received a lot of state subsidies -- even the football team. I don't know about now, but I can't believe the football team is self-supporting, given the anemic fan turnout.

But why should fans pay their hard-earned money to support a mediocre program? Doesn't that enable mediocrity? But that's a discussion for another day.