I agree that Connecticut proper is a tough market because it's situated between NYC and Boston, but take a step back and look at the whole. The Milwaukee/Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland corridor is actually slightly shorter than the Boston/NYC/Philly/Baltimore/DC corridor. Milwaukee has 3 pro teams (the Packers are more of a Milwaukee team than 99% of the teams that are actually situated in their cities), Chicago has 5, Detroit has 4 and Cleveland has 3 in the city proper with a de facto 4th with the Blue Jackets in Columbus. That corridor might not have the same sheer number of teams as the East Coast corridor because of the 9 NYC market franchises, but that Midwest corridor has the highest number of pro teams on a per capita basis of any area in the country, support their pro teams in incredibly loyal numbers and STILL watch both college football and college basketball in a huge way. That's not even counting the Midwest markets outside of that corridor (Minneapolis with a full complement of 4 pro teams, Indianapolis and Cincinnati both having 2 teams each, Downstate Illinois that's really a St. Louis market particularly with respect to the Cardinals that are essentially the Packers fan base equivalent to baseball). The point is that that the Big Ten schools fully coexist with pro sports teams (most of whom have many generations of fans, so the loyalties run deep).
This is in contrast to the SEC core, where outside of Florida and newly added Texas A&M and Missouri, that whole swath of 11 SEC fan bases share a grand total of 7 pro sports teams among them, 3 of which weren't even in their respective markets until the 1990s. That's a big-time difference between what the Big Ten has had in pro sports competition versus the SEC, yet it has still succeeded in being right alongside those pro teams in terms of drawing power. So, that's why I'm always wary of "it's a pro market" reason/excuse. It has been done in plenty of huge markets with marquee pro franchises (i.e. Chicago, Dallas, LA, San Francisco), so being in a pro market in and of itself shouldn't be a singular reason why college sports aren't gaining traction in a particular area.
Look man, I get that you're a midwest guy, but the original point is correct, there is no comparison, in the U.S.A. that is on par with the northeast corridor from Washington D.C. to Boston, and it's interest and support of sports, professional. It's not even close. It takes an entire conference to generate interest in this area, in college sports, outside of any school's immediate demographic.
From that national mall to tremont street boston common is 441 miles. Philadelphia is the essentially the western outpost of the "northeast corridor" when it comes to actually how far west the city if from the Atlantic ocean, and Philly is actually EAST of Washington. Everything in the 'northeast corridor" is packed into an area about 450 miles long, by signficantly less than 100 miles wide.
Washington D.C. 6.8 million. Balitmore 680,000. Philadelphia 1.5 million. New York City 8.2 million (manhattan island alone has more people living there than the entire cities of philadelphia and baltmore combined), New haven/Hartford/Waterbury CT alone 350,000, Boston 625,000 people.
That's approximately 30 million people, just living in the urban centers within that 450x75 mile area along the interstate highways that pass through each urban center for the approx 8 hour drive it would take from the Lincoln Monument to Boston Common. If you've ever driving from D.C. to Boston, well, it's not like driving from Chicago to Milwaukee.
17% of population of the entire USA lives in that approx 450x75 mile corridor. 17% of 314 is about 53.4. 53.4 million people live in that 450x100 mile corridor.
Now you start to factor in the sheer number of universities that compete in intercollegiate athletics in that 450-100 mill area, and it become clear that the entire culture of the region is just entirely separate and distinct from anywhere else in the country.
I've been over this so many times before, to assume that the attendance and size of a football stadium, is any measure of the intensity and dedication of fan following of a college football program in the northeast corridor, as compared to any college football program anywhere else, is an exercise in ignorance and stupidity.
450x100 is about 45,000 square miles, of essentially coast line and is larger than the entire state of Ohio. Ohio's entire population is 11 million. Nowhere is the population density less than 1-2 hour drive from the Atlantic Ocean, and most the population is walking distance.
It's just an entirely different culture and region than anywhere else in the country, and pretty much, there aren't many places with similar population density, demographics and geography like this in the world.
Bottom line, comparing the cultures around university athletics in the northeast corridor, to the cultures around college athletics outside the region, is comparing apples to oranges. You just can't do it. It's entirely different.
What has been lacking, and unfortunately continues to be laacking, for going on 60 years now, beacuse of the decision of the IVY's to get out of the post season, and the formation of the Big EAst confrence, and then the ACC and Notre Dame becoming Big East 2.0, is that there is no major 1-A football CONFERENCE in the northeast corridor.
The Big 10 can do it, with an eastern division, but UCONN needs to be there.