+- CSNbbs (https://csnbbs.com)
+-- Forum: Active Boards (/forum-769.html)
+--- Forum: Lounge (/forum-564.html)
+---- Forum: College Sports and Conference Realignment (/forum-637.html)
+---- Thread: CMU attendance problems (/thread-678102.html)
CMU attendance problems - bullet - 02-21-2014 10:33 AM
Central Michigan has traditionally had among the better attendance figures in the MAC. But their numbers are severely inflated:
http://www.cm-life.com/2012/02/05/football-attendance-not-at-division-i-level-cmu-inflating-announced-numbers/
Would a new Division actually enforce the attendance rules?
If CMU does not average an attendance of 15,000 next year, it will not meet the Division I requirements.
So what would happen?
The NCAA Division I manual states if a member does not meet the requirements it will be given a noncompliance notification. Any further noncompliance will lead to a 10-year period of restricted membership.
“There have been people in the past that haven’t met that number and nothing’s really happened,” Heeke said.
RE: CMU attendance problems - goofus - 02-21-2014 10:48 AM
First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
RE: CMU attendance problems - MinerInWisconsin - 02-21-2014 11:06 AM
(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on current 15k rule, C-USA for sure? Your perception is off a bit from reality. Yes, there are schools with attendance issues. A couple of them left and/or are leaving for the AAC. Our best school for FB attendance is also headed in that direction.
2012 NCAA records for attendance by conference show:
MWC 25,888
C-USA 25,639
Sun Belt 19,766
MAC 15,526
RE: CMU attendance problems - ken d - 02-21-2014 11:10 AM
(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on their current configuration, the only conferences that average 30K+ in the FBS in 2012 were the P5. The AAC is the only other league that came close to this average. I'll have to look up the 2013 figures if they're available yet.
In the last 5 seasons, Eastern Michigan only attained the 15K minimum once, averaging 15,885 in 2010. In the other four years, they have been at 5K or less every time. If ever there was a school that should be relegated to the FCS, this is the one.
In all, 12 schools in 2012 failed to reach the 15K minimum standard. Since the NCAA uses a rolling two year average, some of those may have made the grade in 2013.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Kittonhead - 02-21-2014 11:12 AM
The comments to that story say part of the problem is they want 240 for a season ticket (34 a game). That might be too high for that market.
Ohio prices some of its games at 35 but for others they keep in the 15 to 20 range. The regular season ticket price is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14-15 dollars a game.
That said the entire attendance rule is just plain stupid. Its not a measure of institutional support, its a measure of community support. I wish they would go back to a minimum capacity rule of say 25,000 seats and drop the whole attendance counting business.
Since they've set the minimum average at 15,000 now schools with 15,000 seats think they can play at the top level without expanding their stadium.
RE: CMU attendance problems - MinerInWisconsin - 02-21-2014 11:18 AM
(02-21-2014 11:12 AM)Kittonhead Wrote: The comments to that story say part of the problem is they want 240 for a season ticket (34 a game). That might be too high for that market.
Ohio prices some of its games at 35 but for others they keep in the 15 to 20 range. The regular season ticket price is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14-15 dollars a game.
That said the entire attendance rule is just plain stupid. Its not a measure of institutional support, its a measure of community support. I wish they would go back to a minimum capacity rule of say 25,000 seats and drop the whole attendance counting business.
Since they've set the minimum average at 15,000 now schools with 15,000 seats think they can play at the top level without expanding their stadium.
But why is one arbitrary number better than another? I understand the need to show support because I really think it's ridiculous to have a "major" college football team competing because they have a handful of major donors with almost zero fans in the stands in major market in a football hotbed like Texas. But I don't know how you draw a line that's reasonable when you've already allowed a number of schools below that line to sign up for fbs.
RE: CMU attendance problems - arkstfan - 02-21-2014 11:20 AM
(02-21-2014 11:06 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
C-USA for sure? Your perception is off a bit from reality. Yes, there are schools with attendance issues. A couple of them left and/or are leaving for the AAC. Our best school for FB attendance is also headed in that direction.
2012 NCAA records for attendance by conference show:
MWC 25,888
C-USA 25,639
Sun Belt 19,766
MAC 15,526
Thing is the NCAA maintains two sets of books on attendance.
What you are looking at is just whatever rolls in as part of the reported box score sent each week to Indy.
The number that the NCAA uses to determine classification in Division I football is submitted by the school in February and the NCAA will absolutely not release that number.
I know one CUSA school while they were in the Sun Belt had a policy that they would take every dollar donated to athletics and record it as a sale of tickets and then would count the tickets as a face value transaction of donating tickets to the booster club. One year they got the don't fall below the number letter because they had hired someone new who didn't record the transactions that way and when they realized in January or February they had screwed up they tried to create a whole new set of documents to show ticket sales and the Faculty Athletic Rep refused to certify the created documents.
I know another CUSA school when they were in the Sun Belt would list a ticket for sale at say $15 dollars but internally deemed the ticket price to only be $8 and the remaining $7 a mandatory donation to the booster club. Then when they ran $5 discount ticket promotions the ticket was officially 62.5% of the price of the most expensive publicly available ticket and could be counted as attendance whether the ticket was used or not. They'd get a sponsor to buy a big block of those $5 tickets that normally couldn't be counted unless used and was able to count them even if they were never actually put in anyone's hand.
There are several games that some schools out there are playing.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Kittonhead - 02-21-2014 11:25 AM
(02-21-2014 11:18 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:(02-21-2014 11:12 AM)Kittonhead Wrote: The comments to that story say part of the problem is they want 240 for a season ticket (34 a game). That might be too high for that market.
Ohio prices some of its games at 35 but for others they keep in the 15 to 20 range. The regular season ticket price is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14-15 dollars a game.
That said the entire attendance rule is just plain stupid. Its not a measure of institutional support, its a measure of community support. I wish they would go back to a minimum capacity rule of say 25,000 seats and drop the whole attendance counting business.
Since they've set the minimum average at 15,000 now schools with 15,000 seats think they can play at the top level without expanding their stadium.
But why is one arbitrary number better than another? I understand the need to show support because I really think it's ridiculous to have a "major" college football team competing because they have a handful of major donors with almost zero fans in the stands in major market in a football hotbed like Texas. But I don't know how you draw a line that's reasonable when you've already allowed a number of schools below that line to sign up for fbs.
How many schools fall below the 25,000 capacity line and how many above it?
I can only think of Charlotte, Old Dominion and Idaho of having less than 25,000 capacity. ODU of course is building a 30k seater.
A few schools in the MAC are in the 23-24k range but are 26,000 Standing Room Only. To me that is close enough. Maybe you could allow them to count the SRO seats into the capacity.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Kittonhead - 02-21-2014 11:27 AM
(02-21-2014 11:06 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on current 15k rule, C-USA for sure? Your perception is off a bit from reality. Yes, there are schools with attendance issues. A couple of them left and/or are leaving for the AAC. Our best school for FB attendance is also headed in that direction.
2012 NCAA records for attendance by conference show:
MWC 25,888
C-USA 25,639
Sun Belt 19,766
MAC 15,526
CUSA 3.0 is now averaging 20,000 basically equal to the SBC.
The MWC is at 25,000 and the AAC is projecting 30k fans per game, FWIW.
RE: CMU attendance problems - arkstfan - 02-21-2014 11:45 AM
The NCAA has three divisions and two sub-divisions. Attendance is deemed completely irrelevant in all except Division I football and even there teams exceeding the standard for FBS attendance are under no mandate to move to FCS even though maybe they should if attendance is a significant factor because those schools presumably have some sort of unfair advantage.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Wedge - 02-21-2014 12:04 PM
(02-21-2014 11:18 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote: I don't know how you draw a line that's reasonable when you've already allowed a number of schools below that line to sign up for fbs.
The "line" is a joke, both because
(1) There's no legitimate reason attendance should be a factor in football classification. (Why only football? If attendance is so important, why not kick out of D-I every hoops team that fails to put at least 1,000 butts in seats for each home game, or at least take away their NCAA autobid?) And,
(2) There is no real enforcement (no one gets kicked out) and the existence of the rule encourages schools to tell these ridiculous lies about attendance. "Athletics announced an average attendance of 15,291 for the five home games. The average paid attendance was 4,473." Would a university tolerate lies like that about academics or finances? What would the media reaction be if a university "cooked its books" and officially reported that 15,291 students earn degrees every year while in truth the number is only 4,473?
The NCAA should put an end to the lying. Either drop the rule altogether, or enforce it with attendance numbers verified by professional, independent auditors.
RE: CMU attendance problems - ken d - 02-21-2014 12:31 PM
(02-21-2014 11:45 AM)arkstfan Wrote: The NCAA has three divisions and two sub-divisions. Attendance is deemed completely irrelevant in all except Division I football and even there teams exceeding the standard for FBS attendance are under no mandate to move to FCS even though maybe they should if attendance is a significant factor because those schools presumably have some sort of unfair advantage.
If I had to guess, I would say that average attendance is used as a proxy for financial resources. Remember that when this criterion was established, TV contracts hadn't yet ballooned to the degree they now stand. So ticket revenue (and its corollary, booster donations) were a way of guesstimating resources, since every school accounts for football revenues and expenses differently.
Thus, a school that didn't sell many tickets was going to have much less revenue than a school that did, and therefore not be competing on a level playing field. "Level" of course, is relative. I would say that the P5 are trying to drop the proxy, and are making clear that their resources are so much higher than the G5 and the FCS that they should be autonomous, if not in a separate division altogether.
The reality is that. after realignment, with the possible exception of the AAC and the MWC, all other conferences are more like the FCS members than the P5 members.
And, FWIW, there are nine FBS schools whose two year rolling average attendance now puts them below the minimum threshold of 15K. All but one are in either the MAC or the Sunbelt. Early on after the FBS/FCS split the MAC competed briefly in the FBS, then dropped down for a short while, and returned to the FBS. They are highly motivated to retain FBS status in order to be able to schedule "buy games" against the B1G. I believe EMU scheduled Ohio State a few years ago in exchange for a $850K payday. They can't afford to give that up.
RE: CMU attendance problems - goofus - 02-21-2014 12:39 PM
(02-21-2014 11:10 AM)ken d Wrote:(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on their current configuration, the only conferences that average 30K+ in the FBS in 2012 were the P5. The AAC is the only other league that came close to this average. I'll have to look up the 2013 figures if they're available yet.
In the last 5 seasons, Eastern Michigan only attained the 15K minimum once, averaging 15,885 in 2010. In the other four years, they have been at 5K or less every time. If ever there was a school that should be relegated to the FCS, this is the one.
In all, 12 schools in 2012 failed to reach the 15K minimum standard. Since the NCAA uses a rolling two year average, some of those may have made the grade in 2013.
That is why I picked 30k as the place to draw the line. That seems to be the dividing line between the G5 and P5 conferences, with the AAC kinda borderline now but with Louisville and Rutgers leaving, and tulsa and tulane being added, the average attendance is going to dip.
I know attendance is not the real reason the Big East lost its power conference status, but it is certainly symbolic of what a power conference is.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Kittonhead - 02-21-2014 12:44 PM
(02-21-2014 12:31 PM)ken d Wrote:(02-21-2014 11:45 AM)arkstfan Wrote: The NCAA has three divisions and two sub-divisions. Attendance is deemed completely irrelevant in all except Division I football and even there teams exceeding the standard for FBS attendance are under no mandate to move to FCS even though maybe they should if attendance is a significant factor because those schools presumably have some sort of unfair advantage.
If I had to guess, I would say that average attendance is used as a proxy for financial resources. Remember that when this criterion was established, TV contracts hadn't yet ballooned to the degree they now stand. So ticket revenue (and its corollary, booster donations) were a way of guesstimating resources, since every school accounts for football revenues and expenses differently.
Thus, a school that didn't sell many tickets was going to have much less revenue than a school that did, and therefore not be competing on a level playing field. "Level" of course, is relative. I would say that the P5 are trying to drop the proxy, and are making clear that their resources are so much higher than the G5 and the FCS that they should be autonomous, if not in a separate division altogether.
The reality is that. after realignment, with the possible exception of the AAC and the MWC, all other conferences are more like the FCS members than the P5 members.
And, FWIW, there are nine FBS schools whose two year rolling average attendance now puts them below the minimum threshold of 15K. All but one are in either the MAC or the Sunbelt. Early on after the FBS/FCS split the MAC competed briefly in the FBS, then dropped down for a short while, and returned to the FBS. They are highly motivated to retain FBS status in order to be able to schedule "buy games" against the B1G. I believe EMU scheduled Ohio State a few years ago in exchange for a $850K payday. They can't afford to give that up.
The MAC I think was able to stay at the top level because the B1G supported them. They wanted a little brother in the Midwest to help on voting issues.
As I've said before I think we have a 3 tier system solidly in place. Twenty years ago playing at the top level meant something and also why at that time most people thought the MAC should be dropped back down to FCS.
1) Power Conferences (HRG)
2) Mid Majors (G5)
3) Low Majors (FCS)
There is definitely a night and day difference between the FCS and G5 levels from a facilities and fan interest standpoint with the exception of a few schools. The same can be said of the HRG and G5.
To equate G5 leagues with FCS conferences would be unfair especially looking at the far greater talent level.
RE: CMU attendance problems - ken d - 02-21-2014 12:51 PM
(02-21-2014 12:39 PM)goofus Wrote:(02-21-2014 11:10 AM)ken d Wrote:(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on their current configuration, the only conferences that average 30K+ in the FBS in 2012 were the P5. The AAC is the only other league that came close to this average. I'll have to look up the 2013 figures if they're available yet.
In the last 5 seasons, Eastern Michigan only attained the 15K minimum once, averaging 15,885 in 2010. In the other four years, they have been at 5K or less every time. If ever there was a school that should be relegated to the FCS, this is the one.
In all, 12 schools in 2012 failed to reach the 15K minimum standard. Since the NCAA uses a rolling two year average, some of those may have made the grade in 2013.
That is why I picked 30k as the place to draw the line. That seems to be the dividing line between the G5 and P5 conferences, with the AAC kinda borderline now but with Louisville and Rutgers leaving, and tulsa and tulane being added, the average attendance is going to dip.
I know attendance is not the real reason the Big East lost its power conference status, but it is certainly symbolic of what a power conference is.
I think the P5 want to be in a higher division. But I don't think they want to be in it alone. I think they'd be happy to include the AAC and MWC (or at least the bigger programs among them). there were 75 schools above 30K in 2012. That doesn't leave enough stragglers to form even a sixth conference, given that they are spread coast to coast. 85-90 sounds like a good number to me.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Kittonhead - 02-21-2014 01:04 PM
(02-21-2014 12:51 PM)ken d Wrote:(02-21-2014 12:39 PM)goofus Wrote:(02-21-2014 11:10 AM)ken d Wrote:(02-21-2014 10:48 AM)goofus Wrote: First, if the NCAA chooses to go after 1 school because of attendance problems, CMU is not going to be the poster child since as you mentioned, their attendance has traditionally been not bad. If they choose any school to make an example out of, they might pick their neighbor down the road, Eastern Michigan, who is THE actual poster child for a program with attendance problems.
Now, if you are making an argument that whole conferences that average less than 30k fans per game should be demoted to a new football subdivision, then that's a much more interesting question. I am guessing that would include the whole MAC conference, plus the Sunbelt and C-USA for sure. Possibly even the MWC and AAC.
Based on their current configuration, the only conferences that average 30K+ in the FBS in 2012 were the P5. The AAC is the only other league that came close to this average. I'll have to look up the 2013 figures if they're available yet.
In the last 5 seasons, Eastern Michigan only attained the 15K minimum once, averaging 15,885 in 2010. In the other four years, they have been at 5K or less every time. If ever there was a school that should be relegated to the FCS, this is the one.
In all, 12 schools in 2012 failed to reach the 15K minimum standard. Since the NCAA uses a rolling two year average, some of those may have made the grade in 2013.
That is why I picked 30k as the place to draw the line. That seems to be the dividing line between the G5 and P5 conferences, with the AAC kinda borderline now but with Louisville and Rutgers leaving, and tulsa and tulane being added, the average attendance is going to dip.
I know attendance is not the real reason the Big East lost its power conference status, but it is certainly symbolic of what a power conference is.
I think the P5 want to be in a higher division. But I don't think they want to be in it alone. I think they'd be happy to include the AAC and MWC (or at least the bigger programs among them). there were 75 schools above 30K in 2012. That doesn't leave enough stragglers to form even a sixth conference, given that they are spread coast to coast. 85-90 sounds like a good number to me.
I can see it with an expanded AAC possibly but quite frankly the MWC is no better than the MAC or CUSA in football. In fact the MWC was out recruited by both the MAC and CUSA this year.
Its not....
1) AAC/MWC
2) MAC/CUSA/SBC
Its
1) AAC
2) MAC/CUSA/MWC
3) SBC
Slight advantage for the AAC because of tradition, slight disadvantage for the SBC because of lack of tradition.
RE: CMU attendance problems - Wedge - 02-21-2014 01:25 PM
(02-21-2014 01:04 PM)Kittonhead Wrote: the MWC is no better than the MAC or CUSA in football.
The consensus of opinion strongly disagrees with you.
From Massey's composite of more than 100 different rankings of 125 FBS teams in 2013:
Code:
Conference Mean Ranking of Teams in Conference
(1-125, lowest is best)
SEC 34.49
Pac-12 37.61
Big 12 47.30
Big Ten 48.26
ACC 52.05
American 72.20
Indys 75.69
MWC 79.11
SBC 85.83
CUSA 86.32
MAC 87.65RE: CMU attendance problems - Frank the Tank - 02-21-2014 01:37 PM
(02-21-2014 12:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:(02-21-2014 11:18 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote: I don't know how you draw a line that's reasonable when you've already allowed a number of schools below that line to sign up for fbs.
The "line" is a joke, both because
(1) There's no legitimate reason attendance should be a factor in football classification. (Why only football? If attendance is so important, why not kick out of D-I every hoops team that fails to put at least 1,000 butts in seats for each home game, or at least take away their NCAA autobid?) And,
(2) There is no real enforcement (no one gets kicked out) and the existence of the rule encourages schools to tell these ridiculous lies about attendance. "Athletics announced an average attendance of 15,291 for the five home games. The average paid attendance was 4,473." Would a university tolerate lies like that about academics or finances? What would the media reaction be if a university "cooked its books" and officially reported that 15,291 students earn degrees every year while in truth the number is only 4,473?
The NCAA should put an end to the lying. Either drop the rule altogether, or enforce it with attendance numbers verified by professional, independent auditors.
I agree with this. It's completely a charade. The NCAA has clearly ignored the attendance rule (which I'm personally fine with since I concur that it's already arbitrary in the first place), so there's little point to continue trotting it out there as a requirement. Frankly, the only place that I've ever seen anyone calling for the NCAA to enforce attendance rules are hyper-aware blogs and boards dealing with conference realignment (like this one). The general public doesn't care and the NCAA doesn't seem to care, either.
RE: CMU attendance problems - ken d - 02-21-2014 01:37 PM
(02-21-2014 01:25 PM)Wedge Wrote:(02-21-2014 01:04 PM)Kittonhead Wrote: the MWC is no better than the MAC or CUSA in football.
The consensus of opinion strongly disagrees with you.
From Massey's composite of more than 100 different rankings of 125 FBS teams in 2013:
Code:
Conference Mean Ranking of Teams in Conference
(1-125, lowest is best)
SEC 34.49
Pac-12 37.61
Big 12 47.30
Big Ten 48.26
ACC 52.05
American 72.20
Indys 75.69
MWC 79.11
SBC 85.83
CUSA 86.32
MAC 87.65
I would also suggest that if you looked at a four or five year average of these data, the MWC would do even better. 2013 was an abnormally weak year for that conference. Couple that with the fact that the AAC's lineup changes for 2014 pull them down closer to the MWC.
As for the weaker G5s being better talent-wise than the FCS, I think much of that can be attributed to the difference of 22 scholarships a year. If you put the SBC, CUSA and MAC on the same scholarship footing as the top 3 or 4 FCS conferences, there won't be as much difference as you might think.
RE: CMU attendance problems - arkstfan - 02-21-2014 01:39 PM
The WHY of attendance is this.
The NCAA used to control the football TV contract. The bigs wanted to share with fewer schools so I-AA was created.
To be I-A you had to sponsor a minimum number of sports. If you failed to meet that criteria you could stay I-A by meeting home attendance. If you failed that, you could meet home and away attendance. If you failed that you could be part of a league where a majority of members met the criteria. You didn't have to meet them at all.
In 1981, to further reduce the size of I-A it became sponsor enough sports AND meet home attendance. If home attendance was too low you could meet home and away attendance. If you couldn't meet that you had to be in a league where the majority met I-A requirements.
In the early 2000's. I-AA leagues began complaining about a marked exodus of schools to I-A and requested tighter rules to slow things down. Some I-A became concerned that some of these new schools were barely funding their athletic department and were playing as few as three and four home games racking up budget on money games.
The NCAA adopted rules to address both concerns. 15,000 attendance plus had to award a minimum number of allowed scholarships in football, had to play 5 home games (on an 11 game slate at the time), had to award 200 scholarships overall, had to sponsor at least 16 sports. Most interesting is that attendance which had been 17,000 as the standard was dropped to 15,000.
The attendance criteria was simply created to reduce the number of schools sharing the NCAA TV contract.
When the membership reformed the standards, they elected to reduce the home attendance standard by about 12% while increasing the minimum number of sports by 14% from 14 to 16. Require for the first time ever that a top level school even award football scholarships and essentially increased the minimum scholarship level 100% because in theory you could have met the old FBS requirements by awarding around 100 scholarships.
When getting a piece of the action became less of a factor the emphasis switched from attendance, a measure of external support to sport and scholarship sponsorship, measures of INTERNAL support at a university.