MTSU fell short of drawing 10,000 fans to any football game during the 2018 season, according to information obtained by an open records request by USA TODAY Network – Tennessee.

The average tickets scanned for five regular-season games MTSU hosted was 8,038. That's down from the 2017 average of 8,428 reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The 2018 Conference USA Championship Game, which is run by the conference and is not part of the NCAA's requirement for paid attendance because it is part of postseason play, had 5,811 tickets scanned.

The average paid attendance in 2018 was 15,376, according to an audit of football ticket sales and paid attendance.

Athletics Director Chris Massaro said the discrepancy between average paid attendance and scanned ticket sales was due to a number of factors. He said there were several no-shows from the 4,200 season ticket-holders, a home slate that included games against FCS opponent UT-Martin and Charlotte. He also said colder weather might have driven away a number of fans from each game.

"When you have what's perceived as a better opponent, whether it's somebody from a Power 5 conference like when we played Vanderbilt, the tickets sold and our scanned counts were a lot closer than they were in some of our other games," Massaro said.

NCAA monitors paid attendance

The NCAA has established paid attendance requirements that have to be met by each school to stay in Division I. The requirement is 15,000 in average or actual paid attendance, and it must be met at least once every two years on a rolling basis.

An audit revealed MTSU was in compliance in 2018.

MTSU's final two regular-season home games, against Western Kentucky and UAB, were part of promotions that significantly increased paid attendance numbers. For the WKU game, MTSU's paid attendance was 22,990, the highest during the 2018 season. The regular-season game against UAB was second at 22,114.

Massaro said MTSU sponsors bought tickets in bulk and distributed them, hence the higher numbers.

MTSU's homecoming game against Charlotte drew the lowest paid attendance at 9,312.

"We got to do a better job of reaching our fans," Massaro said. "We got to make the games more fun to attend and we got several ideas we're trying to queue up this year."

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2018 scanned MTSU football tickets

Sept. 8: UT Martin, 7,954

Sept. 29: Florida Atlantic, 8,973

Oct. 20: Charlotte, 6,452

Nov. 2: Western Kentucky, 9,753

Nov. 24: UAB, 7,060

Dec. 1: C-USA title game, 5,811

Reach Luis Torres at ltorres1@dnj.com and follow him on Twitter @LFTorresIII.

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