Coming to a new school and environment can be daunting for a new college student, and sports can be a great place to find school spirit and watch some sports. This would be a way into the school and sports scene, but there needs to be an awareness of the games for it to become a reality.

“We have sporting events?” Freshman Brian McMahon said. “I don’t know about anything going on at this school, the advertisement is terrible.”

This isn’t the first time that Colorado Mesa University’s advertising has been reported as lackluster. It apparently has an effect on more than just campus events as sporting events are poorly advertised as well. To be a part of the sports community and enjoy a football or volleyball game, there must be a proper awareness of the events before the community can be formed.

For students like McMahon that don’t know all of the spots that the school actually does advertise, they can become lost in pursuit of finding a sports game to attend. McMahon wasn’t even aware that the school was on its fourth football game of the season.

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The advertisement might be subpar for CMU, but there is still enough to get some students to watch a game here and there. For those that have watched a game, there are typically two categories that they fall into: The first is the avid college sports fan that will go to any and every game that they can. The second typically reserves attendance to the most important games such as opening game day and playoffs.

“The sports atmosphere here is kind of weak,” Freshman Maddy Moore said. “I went to the opening [football] game and it wasn’t all that exciting. Games at CSU are much more alive and enjoyable than CMU’s games. I’ve even been to high school games with more spirit.”

While it can be unfair to compare a Division II school to a Division I in terms of fan participation, there is still reason to worry about the spirit relative to those bigger schools. The spirit shouldn’t rely on the number of students or which teams the school plays and should be consistent across the board.

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This lack of enthusiasm can be hard to pinpoint at the source and isn’t necessarily determined by the skill of the teams, as CMU has several good sports programs that win decently regularly and should be attracting bigger audiences.

“The game I went to was like, 90 percent parents,” Moore said. “It was weird to be there with so many adults mixing with students.”

The inclusion of the older and local community surely increases attendance, but it could also be part of the reason for the decline in student spectators. This paired with the lack of advertising could be a significant cause of the decrease in student pride and attendance.

The sports community will have to do something to increase participation from the student body and keep the interest in their sports outing beyond the players themselves.