(12-13-2011 11:56 AM)Capital Pirate Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 11:50 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Duke - 28,7

With all due respect, the fact that you would post this (and rely on it) shows that you (like most of the posters here) know nothing about college football in the State of North Carolina.

...but keep on keeping on if it makes you feel better about your opinion.

It's snide remarks like this that prevent there from ever being an intelligent discussion about ECU's situation. So much time & effort is wasted by some ECU fans whining about how unfair it all is that you miss the reasons why ECU isn't being included. All some of you seem to do is play the victim card.

I'm not pretending to know what the situation for college football is in NC. Frankly if Duke & Wake didn't exist, you'd still have a problem as the 3rd school in a state with a population of 9 million when the flagship & the 2nd school both have higher attendance than you do. Furthermore, you're aspiring to a basketball-first conference & you have a terrible basketball program which draws no fans. Those are both real problems whether you like it or not.

What I said about Duke & wake is based on their reported attendance. Even if those attendance figures are way off, they still draw some fans. That's all I was saying; you can't simply write off those numbers as if they don't exist even though they're lower than ECU's. If it's off by 20%, they still combine for about the same number of fans in the stadium as ECU. Those are fans whose interests lie somewhere else. When TV networks look at NC, they see 4 schools that are part of a TV contract & wonder how they're going to generate enough interest in the state for a 5th school in 2 sports. Even though Duke & Wake don't individually draw a lot of fans, they still are part of the ACC TV package & they'll still get fans of other ACC teams watching their games. Because of their location, they don't have to pull viewers in based only on their own merits like ECU does. That's unfortunate, but it's the reality.

In NC, 3 schools report attendance of 50K+. That's one issue. But 3 other schools report attendance of 25K+ & combine for 80K+. You can ignore that at your own peril but the media consultants that the Big East hires aren't ignoring it. To play the victim card & act as if you're simply the victim of bias is not living in the real world.