With all the talk about a fiscal crisis in the athletic department for the past six months or so, one can only scratch his head when looking at the Ohio Bobcats non-league football schedule for the 2007 season.
The Bobcats enter league play this week with a decent 2-2 record, but hosting Gardner-Webb (who knew they were Div. IA?) and Wyoming and the 100 or so fans from each school who made it to Athens can't help home attendance and thus a revenue bottom line. A road trip to now 0-4 Louisiana-Lafayette couldn't have helped the budget a whole lot as well.
The fourth game, Ohio's one money game
at then-ranked Virginia Tech, of course, did help with a guarantee of, hopefully, a couple hundred thousand dollars. And the Bobcats played the Hokies tough.
But compared to the rest of MAC schools, things don't add up. Of the 12 other MAC schools, all 12 will have played at least two money games by season's end. While Ohio is plowing through the Big South Conference, Miami scheduled Minnesota, Colorado, Syracuse and Cincinnati this year. Poor Buffalo takes on Penn State, Rutgers, Syracuse and Baylor. That's four money games each.
In fact, Ohio is the only MAC school not to schedule a Big-Ten opponent this year while Akron, BG, Eastern, Western, Ball State and Northern Iowa all have two big pay days with Big Ten schools this fall. I believe Ohio does have Ohio State next year, but they will be the last Ohio MAC school to take advantage of OSU's recent in-state sharing of the wealth.
Is it any wonder that the athletic department claims to be swimming (well, not men's swimming) in red ink? This is just yet another example of mismanagement by the athletic department.
Pat Eaton writes from Uniontown, Ohio.
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