OT - The Geography of College Football Fans (and Realignment Chaos)

[huskymedic]

Long read but very interesting...

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ll-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?pagemode=print

This link has the pretty colored maps and charts (based read on desktop)

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

 

[beerfan]

This article sums it up well and says why UConn and RU are a good package for any conference
Top marekt for college football NYC.

Favorite college teams in NYC.

1 Rutgers
2. ND
3. PSU
4 Uconn
5. Michigan
6. Syracuse

10. BC with 2.1%

 

[CTMike]

Real, actual data and reasoning... good read.

 

[businesslawyer]

This article sums it up well and says why UConn and RU are a good package for any conference
Top marekt for college football NYC.

Favorite college teams in NYC.

1 Rutgers
2. ND
3. PSU
4 Uconn
5. Michigan
6. Syracuse

10. BC with 2.1%

That was a great piece of research. But the point for the Big Ten is that sometimes the whole equals more than the sum of the parts. New York is not a college football town, and is highly fragmented in which teams are followed. We all know that. But, if you get Notre Dame, UConn and Rutgers into the Big Ten (MIzzou makes 16), you now have the five most favorite programs together in one league. With each of Michigan, Penn State and Notre Dame playing within two hours of midtown every year in either East Hartford or New Brunswick (or, more likely, with the Big Ten requiring at least one RU and UConn home game a year in either Foxboro or the Meadowlands). That combination has the possibility of causing more "neutral" cfb fans in New York to follow one conference, and that could cause more people who don't currently follow CFB to start following it to watch the Big Ten.

If the Big Ten doesn't do that, and do it before the ACC goes to 16, the Big Ten may be land locked in the great lakes -- an area losing population and struggling economically -- forever. And lose the opportunity to be the force that makes CFB popular in the northeast. The Northeast isn't growing in population either, but New York and Philly on the east coast aren't going anywhere as money centers.

My bet is that Michigan and Ohio State see this. I'm not sure Indiana or Minnesota cares that much. They currently feed of the Michigan -- OSU gravy train and are probably most interested in not sharing that.

 

[upstater]

Nate Silver is usually really good on his data points, but this is highly suspect stuff. Adjusting fans by total revenues is meaningless when you consider that, first, revenues are shared among conferences, so Northwestern and Indiana get a huge bump because they're in the same league with Michigan, OSU and Penn State. Second, it doesn't take into account the subsidy coming from the academic side. The fact that Rutgers pours $35 million into its athletics ends up giving it more fans that other schools after adjustment. It's questionable. Google searches may be reasonable to determine this sort of thing, but I'm a fan and can't recall searching "college football." Would that even be a popular search? He'd be better off looking up Alabama football, or Clemson football. That might give him a better idea.

The real eye-opener for me is that U Buffalo came up with 200,000 fans while Uconn only had 600,000, this despite the fact that UConn's athletics revenues are at least 3X higher than UB's.

Silver is usually good. Those numbers are highly suspect. AND he assumes no scientific study has been done, when it has. Harris did a national survey with over 1000 participants.

 

[zls44]

Silver is usually good. Those numbers are highly suspect. AND he assumes no scientific study has been done, when it has. Harris did a national survey with over 1000 participants.

Shoot him an e-mail. Seriously.

 

[BlueMAB]

This article sums it up well and says why UConn and RU are a good package for any conference
Top marekt for college football NYC.

Favorite college teams in NYC.

1 Rutgers
2. ND
3. PSU
4 Uconn
5. Michigan
6. Syracuse

10. BC with 2.1%

Basketball must be part of the equation or RU would have been included over one of Pitt or Cuse.

The results would be very telling if they did this exact same research/article for "college basketball". Compare NYC to Omaha for the total amount of fans, and then compare the amount of UConn/Cuse fans to the amount of Rutgers fans.

 

[SAMCRO]

So am I the only one that finds this "analysis" to be complete and utter BS? This says that Rutgers has more fans in NYC metro area than ND and Penn St. Ummm, no. Not even close.

 

[junglehusky]

So am I the only one that finds this "analysis" to be complete and utter BS? This says that Rutgers has more fans in NYC metro area than ND and Penn St. Ummm, no. Not even close.

maybe that survey was done the day after RU beat Louisville on that FG five years ago, or whatever it was?