ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. – The Observer, the student-run online newspaper serving Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s, and Holy Cross, has shared an open letter to University president Father Jenkins and athletic director Jack Swarbrick expressing concern over the low attendance rate at Saturday’s football game against Toledo and why the University’s recent decisions may be to blame.

In Monday’s Letter to the Editor, author Stephen O’Neil claims the University has become elitist, saying that the University charging high prices for game tickets and streaming Saturday’s game exclusively on Peacock, asking fans to pay and subscribe to the streaming platform in order to watch, is excluding a large number of the Irish fanbase.

“In politics, that is called alienating your base. In this case, it betrays a tone-deafness that you have increasingly shown towards those who have carried the University through thick and thin. Notre Dame professes to be all about diversity, equity and inclusion — just not on Saturday afternoons when there’s more money to be made.”

O’Neil, a 1987 graduate, calls for Fr. Jenkins and Swarbrick to reconsider the University’s ticketing and streaming decisions, “before the free market sorts this out,” claiming that, in the least, a reconsideration would show respect to the school’s supporters.

Click here to read the full letter.