The Zips sold participation instead of wins, and it outsold a decade of football. Here’s where that impulse should actually land.
On August 4, Akron football announced that one season ticket holder would help script the opening drive of the home opener against Robert Morris on September 12. Roughly the first 10 to 15 plays. They called it “Offensive Coordinator of the Game.”
The post did 22 million views. Akron recorded its largest season ticket sales increase since InfoCision Stadium opened in 2009. Fans from across the country, people who have never set foot in Ohio, bought season tickets to get in on it.
Look at what actually sold there.
Not a better team. Not a playoff push. Akron has three bowl appearances in 39 years and hasn’t finished above .500 since 2017. They sold a say in the outcome, and it moved more inventory than a decade of winning football would have.
That demand is real. It is also, right now, almost entirely homeless.
It started on a flight home from a loss
Akron AD Andrew Goodrich was flying back from Tampa in late March after watching his basketball team lose to Texas Tech, 91 to 71. The score wasn’t what stuck. The fan energy did: loud, invested, hundreds of miles from campus. He spent the flight trying to work out how to get that into a football stadium.
He pitched the honorary coordinator idea to senior deputy AD Matt Pottorff mid flight. Pottorff’s read: bad idea. He counter offered a fan calling one play. Goodrich didn’t think one play would make anybody care.
He was right, and that’s the whole insight. One play is a photo op. A drive is a say in how the thing goes.
Head coach Joe Moorhead got the pitch about a week before it went live. “Initially I thought it was ridiculous,” he said, before coming around once the response spoke for itself.
Where the impulse dead ends
Follow the money from that surge.
It goes to the athletic department. Normal, legal, fine, and completely disconnected from the people on the field. The running back who takes the first handoff of that scripted drive sees none of it. Neither does the left tackle blocking for whatever a stranger drew up.
And it’s capped by design. One fan is selected. One drive. One game. Moorhead keeps final approval on every call, which is the right call for a team trying to win, and which also means the most a fan gets is a suggestion a coach may overrule.
So the most enthusiastic thing a fan could do in college football this month was buy a $75 ticket, hope to be chosen, and watch a coach decide how much of their idea survives.
There should be a version of that impulse that reaches the player.
The same impulse, without the drawing
Pick an athlete. Fuel them. When the deal goes through, 90% of it goes to the athlete. If it doesn’t, you get your money back.
That’s the whole thing. Starts at $5, no one is selected, and every D1, D2, and D3 athlete is on the platform across more than 30 sports.
And if an NIL deal still sounds like something reserved for quarterbacks with agents, it covers everything from a $50 post for a local restaurant to a national campaign worth millions. So $25 from a stranger who liked how a freshman receiver ran a slant is not a lesser version of the thing. It is the thing.
A word for the Robert Morris fans
Some of you bought Akron season tickets specifically hoping to be the one selected, so you could script four straight quarterback kneels and ruin the afternoon. It was a good plan. Moorhead already closed that door, since he keeps final approval on every call.
Here’s the door he can’t close.
The Colonials are on RallyFuel too, same as the Zips. Sabotage costs you $75 and gets overruled by a coach. Backing a Colonial works toward a deal for a player on your own roster, and nobody in Akron gets a say in it.
Choose the response that actually pays somebody.
Start where your money is noticeable
The Mid-American Conference has 3,361 verified athletes on RallyFuel across 32 schools. The SEC has 7,173 across 16, and roughly four times as many fans behind them.
Do that arithmetic from a fan’s side. In the SEC you’re one voice among several hundred. In the MAC you’re one of under a hundred. Same $25, considerably more weight.
That’s the practical case for starting with a MAC athlete rather than a household name. The players who need it most are the ones nobody is competing to support.
Now think about the teams nobody sold tickets for
While all this was happening, the Akron women’s soccer team was getting ready to open its season. They host Oakland at FirstEnergy Stadium on August 16, three days before Akron announces which fan gets the headset. Twenty eight athletes on that roster. Down the hall, volleyball has 17 more. Same school, same conference, same training staff, same six in the morning lifts.
Nobody built a promotion around either of them. No drawing to script their opening possession, no 22 million views, no historic ticket surge to be left out of. Forty five athletes at one school, doing the work, and the entire national conversation about Akron this month was about a fan getting a headset.
The game page for that opener is already up. Zips against the Oakland Golden Grizzlies, FirstEnergy Stadium, and a game chat sitting at zero comments. Nobody has said a word about it.
The football post did 22 million views.
That’s the real gap. The Akron promo is the visible version of a thing that happens everywhere, where the money follows the attention and the attention follows football.
The fan Akron selects on the 19th gets two days in the facility and a headset on the sideline, and they’ll have earned it.
A season ticket puts your name in a hat. Twenty five dollars starts a deal that can end with a Zip getting paid, on whichever roster you think deserves it.
After that, the season gets more fun
Backing a player is the part that matters. What surrounds it is built to keep you in it once the money has landed.
Schools are ranked by Fan Power, which combines active fans, Fire Ups, Rally Pit activity, and posts. It measures how loud a fanbase actually is, and it moves when you show up. Ohio State leads it right now. Nothing about that is permanent.
You earn points for nearly everything: 20 per dollar fueled, 20 for calling a game result, 10 for a Fire Up, 10 for logging in, plus commenting, posting, and sharing. They move you from Starter up through Recruiter, Baller, Playmaker, and General Manager, with badges at the milestones. Called Game at five correct calls, Prophet at 20, Oracle at 50, Patron for backing 10 athletes from your school.
There’s also School Rivalry, which puts two programs side by side on NIL, fan engagement, rankings, and championships. Akron against Robert Morris is one dropdown away, if you want the argument settled with numbers before September 12.
None of it is the reason to fuel somebody. It is the reason you’ll still be doing it in November.
