EMU Receives $15,000 Basketball Grant

Good news for a program that needs some. The Eastern Michigan Eagles are getting a fifteen thousand dollar grant for women's Basketball from the NCAA. The grant is aimed at improving attendance at women's games through increased awareness and exposure. Before you allow yourself to be too skeptical of this program; it is only in its second year and has some success, in addition to several recipients setting single game attendance marks during the year:

• Texas Tech University, which doubled its student attendance for women’s basketball home games
• Florida State University increased season ticket sales by 63 percent, with a 55 percent increase in overall attendance for women’s basketball
• East Tennessee State University increased its average attendance by 231 percent

The real test for the effectiveness of programs like this is not how well they do while the money is flowing but how well they do when the tap is turned off. Some schools like East Tennessee, and Auburn will get a grant again this year but Texas Tech and Florida State will not. If the schools without the grant this year manage to hold some gains and EMU uses the money wisely this can be a huge boot for their whole athletic department.