An older blog article from January, but worth a read:
“As many of you know, I’m all for Georgia Southern stepping up into the FBS division in football IF we can realistically afford to do it, and IF Sun Belt Conference will accept us as a full member. Regardless of what you think, we don’t have many (if any) options of a FBS conference other than the Sun Belt.

But before we go jumping into the deep end without taking swimming lessons we need to take a look at where we currently stand in comparison to current FBS institutions, and also we we currently compare against other leading FCS schools. I’ve put together comparisons of athletic department budgets, football budgets, school enrollments and football home game attendance.

What would it take to financially compete in the Sunbelt? at SouthernFACTS.org:
I think you’ll see we have the undergraduate size to move up and we are well on our way to having the attendance. Attendance should not be a problem if we build more seats in Paulson and field teams that put butts in seats every Saturday afternoon.”