First, let me make it clear that I don't think someone (or a group of people) at UB said, "Let's make it difficult for people to be volleyball fans". I'm not alleging anything nefarious like that.

But nevertheless, the cumulative effect of a number of decisions has made it very difficult to follow UB volleyball. And in case you haven't read my writings in the past, I love to follow the UB volleyball team. It's probably my favorite sport. I still enjoy attending the matches.

I'm not talking about the fact that the team has had very little success in the MAC, I'm not talking about the huge amounts of turnover on the roster the last few years, those are subjects for another time. What is more difficult now? The home schedule! And the ticket prices! And new this year, the start times!

For the second year in a row, there are only 8 home volleyball matches, all MAC opponents. For years before that, the team would have two home non-conference tournaments, meaning there were 5 or 6 home non-conference matches, followed by 8 conference matches. Then last year for the first time, there were no home tournaments, all non-conference matches were on the road, and if you wanted to see the team, you had to travel, or wait until the conference play started. This upcoming year again, there are no home non-conference matches. In fact, the first 16 matches are on the road. Very depressing.

Last year, for the first time, to see a volleyball match at Alumni Arena, the tickets were $8, after being free for several years. This certainly wouldn't increase attendance, especially since other Division 1 teams in the area did not charge a penny to attend their volleyball matches. Furthermore, seven-time National Champion Penn State was also charging $8 a ticket ... making it seem that the UB prices were way out of line. And the UB volleyball tickets will be $8 again this upcoming season. I probably wouldn't be complaining if the ticket prices were $5, that seems much more reasonable for a mid-major team that hasn't had a lot of success.

But the thing that has me all bent out of shape now is that all home matches, weekday or weekend, now begin at 6pm (except for one match that is TBA, probably because of a home football game the same day). The matches used to start at 7pm. Since I live in Rochester, and get out of work at 5pm, it was a chore to get dinner and make a 7pm game, but I did it regularly for volleyball and basketball. To get to a weekday 6pm start, I'd have to leave work an hour early, if my boss lets me. If not, that means I could only attend the 4 weekend home matches this year. This is making my life difficult. But even if you live and work in the Buffalo area, you still have to get out of work (probably around 5pm), get dinner, fight traffic and get to Alumni Arena at 6pm. This isn't going to be easy for Buffalo residents either.

I thought for a minute that 6pm starts might be mandated by the MAC to make travel easier somehow. But no, that's not the case, UB will have several road matches in the MAC which begin at 7pm.

If we look back a few years ago, when matches started at 7pm and were free, or even before that when tickets were $5, twice Buffalo had attendance of over 1,000 people (1,104 against Ohio State on 9/21/13 and 1,010 in a memorable victory over Syracuse on 9/15/12). I realize that most of those crowds were students who don't have to pay to get in and who don't have to travel far to get to the matches, but there hasn't been a home volleyball match with attendance of 600 people since then. I suppose some of that is a dropoff of people paying to get in, and a general drop in interest due to no home matches during the non-conference season.

Imagine you were attending one of those matches with 1,000 or more people, it was fun, it was a great atmosphere, and you might say to yourself, I want to see more volleyball at UB. But that's not going to happen this year, there are no non-conference matches.

If I wasn't a die-hard UB fan and a true volleyball nut, I'm not sure I'd be attending any more. I wonder how many casual fans might stop attending.

Editorial Note: The Splash Image and Calendars were added to the fanshot by the Editorial Staff. Aside from that the content has not been altered from the orional post.