In an open letter on Tuesday, April 26 the board of regents at Eastern Michigan University dismissed rumors that EMU was considering either eliminating the football program or dropping down to a lower division of the NCAA (and out of the Mid-American Conference). While this may be reassuring for some, the EMU football program has been anything but successful in the past two decades, which requires a more serious assessment of funding priorities at EMU.
Eastern Michigan has competed in the Mid-American Conference since 1973, winning over 134 conference titles in 20 sports. Track, cross-country, swimming, baseball and basketball are the highlights of the sports program at the university, but in football the Eagles have won a single MAC title in 43 years, dating all the way back to 1987. In fact, the last time the football team had a winning season was in 1995, where they won 6 out of 11 games played. The Eagles have an overall 41-146 record since 2000.
Despite this abysmal record the EMU athletics department spent most of its $34 million budget on the football team in 2015. This funding could have been allocated evenly to the more successful programs, but it was distributed to the failing football team. In their open letter the board of regents stated that, "We believe very strongly in Coach Creighton and his efforts to rebuild the program," despite his current record of 3-21 as the Eagle's coach.
Nearly 80 percent of the $34 million budget was taken from the university general fund, which comes from student tuition. As a result, about $1,000 out of $10,000 in tuition an EMU student pays goes to the athletic department, whether they want it to or not. This isn't common knowledge as these costs are simply labeled as "student fees" on the tuition bill. Most universities lose money on their football programs, but in comparison Michigan and Michigan State get one percent of their athletic budget from their university fund. If this doesn't add insult to injury Chris Creighton's annual salary is $409,840 before any bonuses and incentives, while former president Susan Martin's annual salary was $340,000.
Most students who attend Eastern make up the costs of tuition by applying for loans, scholarships, grants, and working part-time while pursuing their bachelor's degree, so adding an additional $1,000 a year to their bill impacts them greatly as they struggle to make up the cost. Include this alongside $50 printing fees per year, $200 parking tag fees per year, the 7.8 percent tuition increase in 2015, ludicrous costs of textbooks that are only found in the on campus bookstore, and other expenditures it raises questions as to if the board of regents is properly representing the university and the students who attend Eastern.
This kind of funding might be acceptable if students were interested and passionate about their team; the only problem is that's far from the truth, and who would support a team that hasn't had a winning season since 1995?
The Eagles draw the lowest number of fans per game than all of the teams in Division 1 and several attempts have been made to incentivize students to attend the football games. One of these attempts involves the sale of alcohol at games, which ended up making a loss of several thousand dollars. This is small in comparison to a promotion in 2015 that raffled a year's tuition to a potential student who attended the tailgate for the Oct. 29th and Nov. 14th football games.
If this kind of money is available, other students are more deserving based on their academic endeavors compared to someone who wins a raffle by chance through tailgating a football game. There are several homeless students who attend Eastern with graduate Ramone Williams the most well-known. To save money to pay his tuition he slept in the EMU library. The money won from this raffle could have provided the means to pay his tuition and allowed him to save for a living residence.
The most beneficial alternative that the football program at Eastern has is to drop to Division 2. This action would save millions of dollars while ensuring that the team actually wins a few games, which may revitalize interest in the program. Whatever direction the university decides to take the football program, the current trajectory cannot effectively continue; the program has been failing for two decades and changes must be made for the sake of the staff and students who attend Eastern. Academics should always come first and athletics second, not the other way around.
