Not True Lopes.

Spokane does not have that sizable a WSU alumni base. Their facebook page has a whopping 67 in Northeast Washington (Spokane), and 205 in Palouse. There are a 1000 in King (Seattle). Another 500 in the eastern part of the state, plus 214 in Oregon (obviously mostly Portland). It's not scientific, but it gives the picture that most of the in-State alumni live overwhelmingly along the western part of the State. In addition, there are 969 in the NorCal chapter and another 2015 in Sac chapter, with 533 in San Diego, 528 in SoCal (LA Basin). Arizona has 203 while Idaho only 127.

It's very clear what is going. WSU is made up of Sea-Tac and Californians. If you get a degree from an R1 school like WSU with a good reputation with employers (and that is true) then you do not stay in college town Pullman-Moscow, or even small backwoods mini-city of Spokane. This is the exact same problem Idaho has, except it is a school with only 40% of the students and maybe 1/3rd the budget. There is no way they can draw crap there, and nobody who went to their school (or not many) live within driving range. If anything Wazzu is even less of a regional school than Idaho, as the kids come from statewide, mostly the Sea-Tac area, plus some of the huge overflow of kids from California who want a residential school but couldn't get in or couldn't get the major they wanted at UC.The kids support the sports great, and alumni donations are good. But the gate is a joke. People will only come out every other year (or so) for the Apple Cup.

(05-15-2018 09:23 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 07:39 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(05-13-2018 12:57 AM)NoDak Wrote:  

(05-13-2018 12:27 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  Yep, Stugray went into great detail about the restrictions the West faces. The X factor for Las Vegas might be the establishment of a private, non-profit college/university. The state of Nevada could opt not to put a second state university in Las Vegas, but a private college/university would not be dependent on the state.

Nevada State has already been established in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson and has a growing enrollment of 4000. Doesn’t have athletics yet, but expect it to follow the same path of the smaller and younger UC’s and Cal States.

Nevada St is a school that the WAC could pursue once they get their enrollment to 8,000 or so and add sports. Speaking of the younger Cal St's and UCs, I wonder if any of them have an interest in pursuing a similar athletic path. It's not often that you have a DI league out there this anxious to recruit members.

Nevada State College plan says they might add athletics at probably a D-II level around 2025. That makes D-I 2033 at the earliest. I would not lose much sleep over the Scorpions were I the WAC.


BTW for MissouriStateBears:

Washington State (FBS) and Idaho (FCS) are not part of the Spokane Metro Market . They belong to a much smaller Market "Pullman-Moscow" with about 87,000 residents, ... obviously the two campuses dominate what little economy there is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman%E2...tical_area

The Spokane market (technically "Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d'Alene" market) does have Gonzaga (no football) in addition to EWU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane%E2...tical_area

Duh, but Texas A&M is not in Houston nor is Alabama in Birmingham or Florida in Jacksonville but they're very close by and weild a major influence. Anyone that lives in Spokane that wants to be a season ticket holder in any sport of WSU athletics can do so with ease.

(05-15-2018 10:58 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Not True Lopes.

Spokane does not have that sizable a WSU alumni base. Their facebook page has a whopping 67 in Northeast Washington (Spokane), and 205 in Palouse. There are a 1000 in King (Seattle). Another 500 in the eastern part of the state, plus 214 in Oregon (obviously mostly Portland). It's not scientific, but it gives the picture that most of the in-State alumni live overwhelmingly along the western part of the State. In addition, there are 969 in the NorCal chapter and another 2015 in Sac chapter, with 533 in San Diego, 528 in SoCal (LA Basin). Arizona has 203 while Idaho only 127.

It's very clear what is going. WSU is made up of Sea-Tac and Californians. If you get a degree from an R1 school like WSU with a good reputation with employers (and that is true) then you do not stay in college town Pullman-Moscow, or even small backwoods mini-city of Spokane. This is the exact same problem Idaho has, except it is a school with only 40% of the students and maybe 1/3rd the budget. There is no way they can draw crap there, and nobody who went to their school (or not many) live within driving range. If anything Wazzu is even less of a regional school than Idaho, as the kids come from statewide, mostly the Sea-Tac area, plus some of the huge overflow of kids from California who want a residential school but couldn't get in or couldn't get the major they wanted at UC.The kids support the sports great, and alumni donations are good. But the gate is a joke. People will only come out every other year (or so) for the Apple Cup.

Did you ever give thought that maybe Spokane isn't all that big? Portland and Seattle are bigger and oh yeah, by the way, that's where the jobs are for post-grads.

Spokane has its fair share of WSU grads and fans.

(05-15-2018 11:44 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Duh, but Texas A&M is not in Houston nor is Alabama in Birmingham or Florida in Jacksonville but they're very close by and weild a major influence. Anyone that lives in Spokane that wants to be a season ticket holder in any sport of WSU athletics can do so with ease.

The point is the tickets will be cheap and they are just townees.

This is where the difference between the Western and Midwest/Southern culture comes in. Just because the school is local doesn't mean you have one iota of pride or any investment in it. So you do not go. It's not like Alabama where you grow up rooting for Auburn or Alabama even if nobody is college educated in your family. It's somewhat similar in Ohio, as I grew up loyal to Ohio State simply from living in the Columbus area. Boise is a rare town that supports the school on such pride. Pullman is not, and it's much smaller than Boise as well. The reality is out west you need alumni to attend. Wazzu, Idaho, Cal Poly are all examples of schools that have very few alumni in the stands because 95% live well over few hours away. Townees will only pay minor league prices. Their gate is minimal.

Again the great distances in the west come into play. Something you guys in the South or Midwest do not grasp. The Pac-12 would likely have passed on Washington State if there was a do over. San Diego State, possibly Colorado State, and potentially UC Davis and UC San Diego (maybe UNLV ... but that seems to be a Basketball town) are examples of schools that have sufficient alumni living within a short enough distance to generate significant gate revenue a P5 school would require -- the Pac-12 would obviously have to greatly relax their admission requirements. Note everything I said about Washington State is roughly 2-3x worse at Idaho, which is why they dropped down.

(05-16-2018 02:53 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 11:44 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Duh, but Texas A&M is not in Houston nor is Alabama in Birmingham or Florida in Jacksonville but they're very close by and weild a major influence. Anyone that lives in Spokane that wants to be a season ticket holder in any sport of WSU athletics can do so with ease.

The point is the tickets will be cheap and they are just townees.

This is where the difference between the Western and Midwest/Southern culture comes in. Just because the school is local doesn't mean you have one iota of pride or any investment in it. So you do not go. It's not like Alabama where you grow up rooting for Auburn or Alabama even if nobody is college educated in your family. It's somewhat similar in Ohio, as I grew up loyal to Ohio State simply from living in the Columbus area. Boise is a rare town that supports the school on such pride. Pullman is not, and it's much smaller than Boise as well. The reality is out west you need alumni to attend. Wazzu, Idaho, Cal Poly are all examples of schools that have very few alumni in the stands because 95% live well over few hours away. Townees will only pay minor league prices. Their gate is minimal.

Again the great distances in the west come into play. Something you guys in the South or Midwest do not grasp. The Pac-12 would likely have passed on Washington State if there was a do over. San Diego State, possibly Colorado State, and potentially UC Davis and UC San Diego (maybe UNLV ... but that seems to be a Basketball town) are examples of schools that have sufficient alumni living within a short enough distance to generate significant gate revenue a P5 school would require -- the Pac-12 would obviously have to greatly relax their admission requirements. Note everything I said about Washington State is roughly 2-3x worse at Idaho, which is why they dropped down.

Great post. I’ve started threads on this topic. I was born in Eastern Iowa where everyone is a Hawkeye. There is a state identity with the state Flagship in the Midwest and South that doesn’t exist on the coasts.

When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

From experience, I can tell you that's easier said than done.

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

So where does Colorado Mines get the money to go FBS, build a 30k stadium and pay for winning coaches? I get what you are trying to say, "build it, and they will come". Let's say Colorado would come to play at Colorado Mines if Mines invested hundreds of millions into building a program. Where do those hundreds of millions come from? And what if Colorado DOES NOT play at Mines after they've invested hundreds of millions into building a program?

(05-15-2018 03:04 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 12:46 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  In the Inland Empire area of Southern California, the growth is very strong. There have been four new cities added in the last decade (Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Menifee and Wildomar). Twenty years ago, Eastvale was farmland 45 miles east of downtown LA. Today it is a city of over 60,000 and nearly every house, store and school in the city was built this century. The Inland Empire area will add another two million in population over the next 30 years.

There are no new universities, the existing ones just keep getting larger. UCR has increased enrollment from about 8,000 to about 24,000 over the last thirty years. Cal Baptist, which is joining the WAC on July 1st. has grown from 2,000 students in 1996 to 10,000 today. A community college (Norco College) was added in the early 90's and it has 13,000 students, but the area will eventually need an additional state college. There is no college football in the area.

2 million more people in the Inland Empire would be an increase of 50%. Increasing the number of area state colleges from 2 to 3 does seem to make sense. Although, there does appear to be room for growth at both Cal State San Bernardino and UC Riverside. CSUSB has enrollment of about 21k (the largest CSUs are near 40k) while UCR has enrollment of about 23k (the largest UCs are near 45k.)

But the areas filling in are the dairy farms between San Bernardino/Riverside and what used to be the eastern edge of the LA sprawl, currently served by Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Fullerton. So it might make sense to start a new state school somewhere in the middle. Maybe in Ontario, Chino, or Chino Hills. The state could always repurpose the land currently used for the state prisons in Chino.

But would it be a new UC or a new CSU? And would it, CSUSB, or UCR be best positioned to take advantage of the population growth to fund athletics?

But our point is that California has been built out for decades. California isn't doubling or trippling in population. Places in the South did since 1980 and these new universities fillled a need. The answer to OP is that if there were a need and they wanted to expand universities and athletics out west, they would have.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

(05-16-2018 09:17 AM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

So where does Colorado Mines get the money to go FBS, build a 30k stadium and pay for winning coaches? I get what you are trying to say, "build it, and they will come". Let's say Colorado would come to play at Colorado Mines if Mines invested hundreds of millions into building a program. Where do those hundreds of millions come from? And what if Colorado DOES NOT play at Mines after they've invested hundreds of millions into building a program?

Where did I say Mines? I said Mesa. Mines do not have a student enrollment to be D1. Mesa does.It seems Colorado Mesa have been doing good at fund raising for their athletics as they have been upgrading their facilities lately, and added sports. Denver would love for Mesa to come up since they do have LAX.

(05-15-2018 10:58 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Not True Lopes.

Spokane does not have that sizable a WSU alumni base. Their facebook page has a whopping 67 in Northeast Washington (Spokane), and 205 in Palouse. There are a 1000 in King (Seattle). Another 500 in the eastern part of the state, plus 214 in Oregon (obviously mostly Portland). It's not scientific, but it gives the picture that most of the in-State alumni live overwhelmingly along the western part of the State. In addition, there are 969 in the NorCal chapter and another 2015 in Sac chapter, with 533 in San Diego, 528 in SoCal (LA Basin). Arizona has 203 while Idaho only 127.

It's very clear what is going. WSU is made up of Sea-Tac and Californians. If you get a degree from an R1 school like WSU with a good reputation with employers (and that is true) then you do not stay in college town Pullman-Moscow, or even small backwoods mini-city of Spokane. This is the exact same problem Idaho has, except it is a school with only 40% of the students and maybe 1/3rd the budget. There is no way they can draw crap there, and nobody who went to their school (or not many) live within driving range. If anything Wazzu is even less of a regional school than Idaho, as the kids come from statewide, mostly the Sea-Tac area, plus some of the huge overflow of kids from California who want a residential school but couldn't get in or couldn't get the major they wanted at UC.The kids support the sports great, and alumni donations are good. But the gate is a joke. People will only come out every other year (or so) for the Apple Cup.

79% of WSU students come from Washington
14% from out of state
7% are international

Spokane/Spokane Valley are two cities next to each other that add up to over 300,000 ppl. So its not this small backwood area. Yes more come from the Seattle area but if you ask those who work for the WSU athletics and for WSU in general view Spokane as part of the WSU territory. They host athletic events for football along with other sports.

(05-16-2018 09:58 AM)Lopes87 Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 10:58 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Not True Lopes.

Spokane does not have that sizable a WSU alumni base. Their facebook page has a whopping 67 in Northeast Washington (Spokane), and 205 in Palouse. There are a 1000 in King (Seattle). Another 500 in the eastern part of the state, plus 214 in Oregon (obviously mostly Portland). It's not scientific, but it gives the picture that most of the in-State alumni live overwhelmingly along the western part of the State. In addition, there are 969 in the NorCal chapter and another 2015 in Sac chapter, with 533 in San Diego, 528 in SoCal (LA Basin). Arizona has 203 while Idaho only 127.

It's very clear what is going. WSU is made up of Sea-Tac and Californians. If you get a degree from an R1 school like WSU with a good reputation with employers (and that is true) then you do not stay in college town Pullman-Moscow, or even small backwoods mini-city of Spokane. This is the exact same problem Idaho has, except it is a school with only 40% of the students and maybe 1/3rd the budget. There is no way they can draw crap there, and nobody who went to their school (or not many) live within driving range. If anything Wazzu is even less of a regional school than Idaho, as the kids come from statewide, mostly the Sea-Tac area, plus some of the huge overflow of kids from California who want a residential school but couldn't get in or couldn't get the major they wanted at UC.The kids support the sports great, and alumni donations are good. But the gate is a joke. People will only come out every other year (or so) for the Apple Cup.

79% of WSU students come from Washington
14% from out of state
7% are international

Spokane/Spokane Valley are two cities next to each other that add up to over 300,000 ppl. So its not this small backwood area. Yes more come from the Seattle area but if you ask those who work for the WSU athletics and for WSU in general view Spokane as part of the WSU territory. They host athletic events for football along with other sports.

I live in a Georgia county that has about 800k people. The counties to the east and west are both are close to 1M each. There are at least 4 others with more than 300k. So yes 300k is not big.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

(05-16-2018 09:27 AM)panama Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 03:04 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 12:46 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  In the Inland Empire area of Southern California, the growth is very strong. There have been four new cities added in the last decade (Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Menifee and Wildomar). Twenty years ago, Eastvale was farmland 45 miles east of downtown LA. Today it is a city of over 60,000 and nearly every house, store and school in the city was built this century. The Inland Empire area will add another two million in population over the next 30 years.

There are no new universities, the existing ones just keep getting larger. UCR has increased enrollment from about 8,000 to about 24,000 over the last thirty years. Cal Baptist, which is joining the WAC on July 1st. has grown from 2,000 students in 1996 to 10,000 today. A community college (Norco College) was added in the early 90's and it has 13,000 students, but the area will eventually need an additional state college. There is no college football in the area.

2 million more people in the Inland Empire would be an increase of 50%. Increasing the number of area state colleges from 2 to 3 does seem to make sense. Although, there does appear to be room for growth at both Cal State San Bernardino and UC Riverside. CSUSB has enrollment of about 21k (the largest CSUs are near 40k) while UCR has enrollment of about 23k (the largest UCs are near 45k.)

But the areas filling in are the dairy farms between San Bernardino/Riverside and what used to be the eastern edge of the LA sprawl, currently served by Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Fullerton. So it might make sense to start a new state school somewhere in the middle. Maybe in Ontario, Chino, or Chino Hills. The state could always repurpose the land currently used for the state prisons in Chino.

But would it be a new UC or a new CSU? And would it, CSUSB, or UCR be best positioned to take advantage of the population growth to fund athletics?

But our point is that California has been built out for decades. California isn't doubling or trippling in population. Places in the South did since 1980 and these new universities fillled a need. The answer to OP is that if there were a need and they wanted to expand universities and athletics out west, they would have.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

California's population in 1980 was 23.6 million. The current estimate is 39.5 million. Georgia's population in 1980 was 5.4 million. The current estimate is 10.4 million. California has added 16 million in population since 1980. That 16 million is more than the population of 46 states. Only Texas, Florida and New York have more than 16 million people. California has added more people than any other state since 1980. California has not "been built out for decades."

Sure but Georgia has close to 11 million ppl without a giant volcanic mountain range that cuts off the state from each other. In Eastern Wa There are about 1.5 million ppl and half live in Spokane County then if you add in Kootenai County in N.Idaho thats10 mins from the city of Spokane another 150k ppl. So it would would be the same size population wise to a Cobb County in Georgia and I think that is plenty big area to work with.

Spokane is clearly, unequivocally, a WSU town for football and a Gonzaga town for basketball. This is clear to anyone who's spent any time there or lives in the media market. Those programs dominate local TV, radio and newspaper coverage. And Spokane sends a sizable contingent to Pullman for football games, which is obvious from the choked highways on game days. But yes, it's not that big, and there's not much other population in the surrounding area. So the WSU gate is what it is, but that's not because Spokane isn't a Coug town.

(05-16-2018 09:12 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

From experience, I can tell you that's easier said than done.

As long as every game results in someone losing, that's not a model easily replicated.

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game.

Why on gods green earth is a major going to play AT CSU-Fullerton?

Quote:The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games.

Even, worse, when your teams ARE "losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games."

Quote:Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

That's like saying that to be as rich as Bill Gates, you need to invent an operating system that the industry leader adopts and then use that as a springboard to build a global empire.

1. It wasn't not that easy
2. It's already been done so the niche is filled.

(05-16-2018 09:53 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Where did I say Mines? I said Mesa.

[/quote]

Sigh. Fine.

So where does Colorado Mines Mesa get the money to go FBS, build a 30k stadium and pay for winning coaches? ... And what if Colorado DOES NOT play at Colorado Mines Mesa after they've invested hundreds of millions into building a program?

Mesa has an endowment around $20M. Unless they have a Joe Moglia to single-handedly build them a stadium and fund an FBS athletic department, the most they can really hope for is to join Southern Utah at the bottom of Division I.

(05-16-2018 10:56 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 09:27 AM)panama Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 03:04 PM)GiveEmTheAxe Wrote:  

(05-15-2018 12:46 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  In the Inland Empire area of Southern California, the growth is very strong. There have been four new cities added in the last decade (Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Menifee and Wildomar). Twenty years ago, Eastvale was farmland 45 miles east of downtown LA. Today it is a city of over 60,000 and nearly every house, store and school in the city was built this century. The Inland Empire area will add another two million in population over the next 30 years.

There are no new universities, the existing ones just keep getting larger. UCR has increased enrollment from about 8,000 to about 24,000 over the last thirty years. Cal Baptist, which is joining the WAC on July 1st. has grown from 2,000 students in 1996 to 10,000 today. A community college (Norco College) was added in the early 90's and it has 13,000 students, but the area will eventually need an additional state college. There is no college football in the area.

2 million more people in the Inland Empire would be an increase of 50%. Increasing the number of area state colleges from 2 to 3 does seem to make sense. Although, there does appear to be room for growth at both Cal State San Bernardino and UC Riverside. CSUSB has enrollment of about 21k (the largest CSUs are near 40k) while UCR has enrollment of about 23k (the largest UCs are near 45k.)

But the areas filling in are the dairy farms between San Bernardino/Riverside and what used to be the eastern edge of the LA sprawl, currently served by Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Fullerton. So it might make sense to start a new state school somewhere in the middle. Maybe in Ontario, Chino, or Chino Hills. The state could always repurpose the land currently used for the state prisons in Chino.

But would it be a new UC or a new CSU? And would it, CSUSB, or UCR be best positioned to take advantage of the population growth to fund athletics?

But our point is that California has been built out for decades. California isn't doubling or trippling in population. Places in the South did since 1980 and these new universities fillled a need. The answer to OP is that if there were a need and they wanted to expand universities and athletics out west, they would have.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

California's population in 1980 was 23.6 million. The current estimate is 39.5 million. Georgia's population in 1980 was 5.4 million. The current estimate is 10.4 million. California has added 16 million in population since 1980. That 16 million is more than the population of 46 states. Only Texas, Florida and New York have more than 16 million people. California has added more people than any other state since 1980. California has not "been built out for decades."

Atlanta's population in 1980 was 2M. It's now 6M.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

(05-16-2018 11:06 AM)Lopes87 Wrote:  Sure but Georgia has close to 11 million ppl without a giant volcanic mountain range that cuts off the state from each other. In Eastern Wa There are about 1.5 million ppl and half live in Spokane County then if you add in Kootenai County in N.Idaho thats10 mins from the city of Spokane another 150k ppl. So it would would be the same size population wise to a Cobb County in Georgia and I think that is plenty big area to work with.

150k people for in my subdivision. LOL

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

(05-16-2018 09:53 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 09:17 AM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 08:59 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  When it is local like lets say CSU-Fullerton? The locals will come out if they play somebody major like it is a major game. The support will come out. Lets say Colorado comes and visits Colorado Mesa? It would be a major event in Grand Junction, and people will come out and buy tickets to watch the games. It is like when the fans came out in droves to watch their school lose to Oklahoma or when UTSA lost to Oklahoma State. The problem we have is that fans are not too excited in seeing their teams take on losers like the two Florida twins in C-USA, or a North Texas team that have not win many games. Plus, many of these schools lost their rivals over th4e years. Houston, Rice, and SMU lost all their rivals who went into other conferences that are power 5. UTEP's rivals are not really any of the C_USA schools. For a while, it was schools like the 2 New Mexico, 3 Arizona and several Texas schools including West Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Hardin-Simmons.

Now, if the schools out west want to start football? They have to look at the Boise State model. Build a 30,000 + stadium, hire winning coaches and get P5 schools come play at your home place. The tickets will sell if they look at that model.

So where does Colorado Mines get the money to go FBS, build a 30k stadium and pay for winning coaches? I get what you are trying to say, "build it, and they will come". Let's say Colorado would come to play at Colorado Mines if Mines invested hundreds of millions into building a program. Where do those hundreds of millions come from? And what if Colorado DOES NOT play at Mines after they've invested hundreds of millions into building a program?

Where did I say Mines? I said Mesa. Mines do not have a student enrollment to be D1. Mesa does.It seems Colorado Mesa have been doing good at fund raising for their athletics as they have been upgrading their facilities lately, and added sports. Denver would love for Mesa to come up since they do have LAX.

What? This contradicts the more than 50 posts DavidSt has made about Colorado Mines moving to the Big Sky or Summit/MVFC.