When the college football season began in August, few could have predicted the success of the Mid-American Conference in national polls, but fewer still could have foreseen the conference's attendance boom.
The MAC is enjoying what could prove to be its highest total and average attendance in the past six seasons, due in part to a new television contract with ESPN finalized just three months ago. The national rankings of Northern Illinois, Miami and Bowling Green also helped.
After last weekend's games, the MAC had drawn a total of 1,210,671 fans to 63 games - an average attendance of 17,804 fans per game. If the MAC were to keep that pace for the rest of the year, total attendance would be 1,477,731, an increase of 57,226 more than last season's total attendance.
The average attendance marks an increase of 257 fans per game since last season, though it falls just short of the 1999 regular season average of 17,843.
Factors for the increase in attendance include the national television coverage the MAC has received this season and the conference's five wins against nationally ranked Bowl Championship Series conference schools, said Gary Richter, MAC associate commissioner for media relations.
The wins this year that we have had over ranked teams have brought so much notoriety to the league overall that people are saying
'Hey this MAC football is pretty good ' Richter said. That translates into people wanting to see not only good football games
but good match-ups.
