The Akron men's basketball team is in third place in the MAC's East Division, winners of all six conference home games entering Wednesday night. The Zips drew the largest student crowd in more than a decade for last Tuesday's 61-52 win over Kent State. To capitalize on this momentum, Akron has decided to.... pay students to attend games?
Head coach Keith Dambrot announced a promotion earlier this week that will pay students $5 in Zip Card money (the campus credit card used for food and other goodies that every university uses) per game for each of their final three home games - as long as 800 students attend that night's game. Students who attend all three games will receive an extra $5 - pushing the total to $20 - no matter how many of their peers show up.
"Akron students have helped our program make the JAR one of the toughest places to play in the MAC," Dambrot said. "This Student Appreciation program is just one way for us to show our appreciation for everything they do. We need our students out, in force, at our final three home games to help us win our third MAC regular season title in the last four seasons."
Though the school isn't putting dollar bills in students' hands, instead choosing not to charge them for food and other items that have been marked up in the first place, this is still a costly promotion Akron has undertaken. If 1,000 students show up to each contest, this push could easily come with a $20,000 price tag.
It's the type of promotion one might anticipate from a program playing out the string on a 3-23 season, not one making a push for the NCAA Tournament that has already given its student body ample reason to attend already.
For what it's worth, it doesn't appear the offer of free cash has increased the turnout - or help push the Zips to victory. Akron lost to Toledo 68-66 on Wednesday night, its first home loss since Dec. 13. While we don't know exactly how many students came to claim their free $5, we do know the games was played before a crowd of 3,351 - down 30 percent from the 4,836 that saw last week's defeat of Kent State.
Regardless, this is an intriguing, creative idea by Akron. It'd be interesting to see a football program try this - Wednesday night #MACtion, perhaps?