(12-13-2011 10:42 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 09:38 AM)piratefan1975 Wrote:  Schools with large fan bases and good attendance would be pretty stupid to not attempt to display their strength while downplaying their weakness, such as market size.

Conversely, schools with very small fan bases and no interest in their program (as compared to flagship programs within their states) would attempt to diminish the importance of attendance and games, and divert the attention to other factors such as market size, that would play to their advantage.

I prefer common sense.

1. Schools build on-campus stadiums to capacities that "fit" the size of the fan base. That's why Tulane, for instance, just announced a cozy, on-campus stadium that will adequately fit their needs and can be expanded in the future. They're not building 100,000 seats to begin with.

2. I would venture to say that the percentage of a total fan base that actually attends games is remarkably similar across the board. Common excuses that "we have more to do in big cities than go to college football games" doesn't hold water. There's no way to measure this, but using attendance is probably a pretty reliable measure of the popularity of a program, regardless of markets or state boundaries, etc. Using Florida as an example, UF probably has the largest fan base of any school in the state; followed by FSU, then Miami, then USF, then UCF, etc. Sure, Miami may draw more from the Miami area than FSU, but overall, the sizes of the fan bases are probably in line with attendance.

3. Fan bases extend way beyond DMA's. All 90,000+ fans that visit The Swamp on Saturdays don't live in the Gainsville DMA. Nor do all 32,000 fans that visit Nippert Stadium live in Cincinnati. That would indicate that the University of Florida probably has more market "reach" than Cincinnati, just due to the size of the fan base.

4. Using Cincinnati as an example, they draw 32,000 people per game while OSU draws over 105,000. What's more impressive is that OSU is at 102% capacity. There's no telling how many they could fit if they had a stadium large enough to hold everyone. Again, common sense tells me the relative strength of the fanbase in the "pecking order" in the state. While Cincinnati is more popular than Ohio or Miami (OH) or Kent State, they pale in comparison to the state flagship in terms of popularity.

5. The top 10 for attendance in 2011 are Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State, Texas, Tennessee, LSU, UGA, Florida and Texas A&M. Common sense tells me that those are some of the most popular programs in the country. If you took a national poll for favorite teams, the top 10 would look eerily similar to that. Believe it or not, there is a correlation between attendance and popularity (size of the fan base).

A number of good points in your post. Just want to correct the facts in your Florida example in which you list attendance ranking with Miami 3rd & USF 4th. Since the decline of Miami football coinciding with its entrance into the ACC & with the emergence of USF football as they have built their program, USF has higher attendance than Miami most of the time in recent years. Here's how their attendance compares over the past 4 years (in the thousands) with the most recent year first:

USF -- 40,8 - 52,5 - 49,6 - 53,1
Miami - 52,5 - 47,5 - 46,2 - 43,5

You have very effectively articulated the pro-ECU argument. As I said , all good points. However, it must be balanced against the other side of the argument. Attendance doesn't make money for anyone else in the conference. Only for the home team. TV contracts make money for everyone. Hence, the market size argument.

Teams that draw TV viewership outside their market do so because there's interest that goes beyond the loyal following. That interest is normally generated by a winning record. ECU has had only 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years, i.e. since the turn of the century. That's a problem for the notion that they will generate interest beyond their fan base. Teams that don't have winning seasons don't go to bowls, so it also undermines the traveling fan base argument. Moreover, ECU isn't close to any other Big East schools, so just how far are they going to travel even to regular season games?

The other problem that ECU has even with their attendance is their ceiling. There's only so high that their popularity can go because they're in a state with a population of 9 million, about the same size as New Jersey. IN NC, they have competition form UNC & NC State, both of whom draw more fans than ECU does. While ECU fans love to disparage Duke & Wake, the fact is that they combine for more fans than ECU draws, so they count for something in the college football landscape. Finally, NC has one of the best I-AA programs in the country & it draws very well for I-AA. Lastly, there's an NFL franchise in the state with its own fan base. None of this is to disparage what ECU has accomplished. Only to point out that it is a market with a lot of competition for the local college football fan.

For all the criticism of the Big East, their expansion plans have been guided by a team of media consultants, not by some group of village idiots as is often claimed here. Undoubtedly these consultants, experts in their field, have looked at all the factors you present & more. They've drawn a different conclusion than you have.

I appreciate your post and of course do disagree about a few of them. I have to disagree about our ceiling. When you open a 7k stadium expansion and it's full the first 2 years of it's existance and we are planning another it's obvious we haven't hit that ceiling yet. The fact that we have been able to do all that with as you pointed out 4 winning seasons in 11 years shows you how much passion there is for East Carolina in the state of NC, and not that it's just something that would disappear during a downturn in play.

I think you also very much overstate the local competition in the area. State and UNC are certainly factors there is no doubt about that, but the others you mentioned really aren't that big. You did rightfully mention App though, who actually have a much larger football following in the state than both Duke and Wake.

The Panthers don't have the same negative affect on us the way that NFL franchises seem to have on teams in their cities. We are quite a distance away from them, and because of the fact that they really haven't been in existance that long most of the people in the state are fans of the colleges and have converted to Pathers fans. That's probably different than the mentality up in the NE where the NFL teams have been in existance for 70+ years and demand so much more attention year round than the Pathers have ever gotten around here.

I don't disagree with your last paragraph though. As much as we like to joke about Marinara you don't just go around picking teams from every corner of the country unless someone is telling you this is what we want you to do. As I said at the begining of your post though I do appreciate your post and opinion. I have no problem with people wanting to have a well thought out debate on the subject, but some immediately just go to calling ECU fans bitter and butt hurt and then we have a pissing match. I'm happy to see a couple of back to back well reasoned posts on the subject from 2 different perspectives.