Empty seats lead to empty pockets

With the football season ticket campaign off to another blistering start, IU athletics department staff and booster club donors begin to hold their breath as season passes go on sale for what promises to be another long season of IU football. \nHowever, most people's hopes are set on fixing an IU football program that continues to hemorrhage money with its disappointing seasons and lack of support. Instead of focusing on bowl eligibility, the Hoosier faithful have set their sights on a way to build a fan base and to give the home team an atmosphere it has not enjoyed since the bowl teams of the early '90s.\nSo how does the University fix a problem that is not only a financial burden but also an embarrassment when compared with the other 10 teams in the conference? Over the years, people (including a revolving door of athletics directors) have made suggestions on what IU needs to do to become more competitive. Hire a new coach? Check. Hire a new athletics director? Check. Spend on new uniforms and facilities? Check. But the problem still hasn't been fixed. \nIU continues to lose ballgames it has no business losing and is doing so in the national spotlight. And with only one team on the 2004 schedule that will make IU the favorite, Hoosier losing woes don't seem to have an end in sight. \nIt's not that the Hoosiers can't win these games. It's that outside of the program itself, no one seems to care.\nThe program took a step in the right direction when former athletics director Michael McNeely sought out a head coach who knew what it was like to build a team from the gutter. With DiNardo scouring the Midwest recruiting scene to compete with Purdue and Notre Dame, it is clear the football staff is making strides toward improvement.\nBut with each step forward, the struggling athletics department seems to take two steps backwards. The bleachers of Memorial Stadium have become ever more vacant. How is it possible that 50,000 people tailgate on game day, but only 5,000 people actually go to the game?\nUntil I arrived in Bloomington I had never heard of athletics events that grant fans the ability to leave the stadium and return at their leisure. If it were up to me, I'd lock the gates and keep everyone who stumbled upon the game there as long as possible. \nYou would have a better chance of Bob Knight returning to 17th Street than you do the fans that leave the stadium for their kegs and brats.\nThe fact that the athletics department can't fix the problem is not the worst part. It's that they won't take the necessary steps to encourage fan support, as doing so costs money in the short term.\nBut losing year after year costs money, too. Take your lumps now for the good of the program later. This problem is far too big to fix in one season.\nInstead, the athletics department wants the quick fix: raise ticket prices or impose a standard athletics fee and revenues should go up. But how do the powers that be expect to fill seats with high ticket prices? Check that -- how do they expect to fill seats with ticket prices, period?\nNo one, not even Indiana football enthusiasts, will pay the face value 40 bones to watch IU lose to the weakest of NCAA teams. I guess those who set the ticket prices are counting on filling the stadium when the powerhouse squads like Michigan and Ohio State come to town. \nBut if there's one thing I've noticed in my four years at IU, it is that the rare sellouts occur only when the big dogs play here. But surprise, surprise -- the stands won't be filled with cream and crimson.\nThe key to turning this mess around is simple marketing. And for a school packed to the brim with marketing majors, it wouldn't cost a dime. Can anyone say, "Class project?"\nStart by putting fannies in the seats at any cost. This means, for starters, letting students in free. Schools with much better football programs than ours thrive off their gratis student admission policy. If IU students started going to the games instead of passing out in the lawn across the street, maybe the rest of the IU community would follow suit.\nStudents enjoy free admission to soccer games, and the soccer team is a success. Why? Among other things, because there is a buzz in this town about soccer that doesn't exist about football. Some students don't even realize there is a game on a particular weekend until the tailgating traffic screws up their plans to lay out at the IU pool.\nAs a student who loves football, I beg of you, athletics department: admit students for free. At the very least, curiosity should draw enough people to double the average attendance. Or at least, draw enough fans to compete with the soccer team. \nAnd then who knows? People will not only pay money to watch them play, but also stay past halftime and root their team to victory.\nWhat do you have to lose? Fans? Money? Too late for that -- those are already gone.