Eventually, ND will come to its senses and join most of its traditional rivals in the B1G.
But it may not happen right away.
The Rust Belt is indeed losing population, but ND’s subway alumni following simply spread that fandom to any place they move.
As long as ND gets a separate vote in all of these CFP issues, they still have a lot of cache. They are truly the only school that has a large national following. ND is a second favorite school to a lot of people. Once it is no longer to their advantage to be independent, they will join a conference for football.
For 40 years, people have been saying the Rust Belt is dying. If it is going to die, we are all going to be long dead before it happens.
and the Cleveland Browns
Their are Packer & Steeler bars all over Houston.
A good sign that the Rust Belt is dying…
It’s the same way with ND.
Those Rust Belt ND fans simply take their fandom with them anywhere they move and continue to spread/sustain it.
Packers play in the NFC and the Steelers play in the AFC…they are IN Conferences…they COMPETE for Division and Conference Championships. They HAVE rivals within their Division.
I’m just telling you as someone who doesn’t follow ND that i would be a million times more likely to watch Notre Dame vs Ohio State or Michigan for a chance to win the B1G 10 championship than Notre Dame vs a random ACC team with nothing on the line.
That’s what this whole realignment carousel is about. Move the top tier value brands into the two conferences to create better matchups THAT MATTER!
I would argue for similar, but not precisely the same reasons, that ND belongs in the B1G.
It has nothing to do with them playing for a conference title or having a title shot on the line.
It has to do with the fact that ND fans are much more likely to get psyched up to see them play their traditional rivals like Michigan, USC, Michigan State, etc than to see them play either ACC teams, or even Stanford or Navy (both traditional rivals, but without the same fan followings as many of their traditional B1G rivals).
Michigan and Michigan State are already in the B1G, and USC soon will be. It’s only natural that ND join those rivals, together with other traditional rivals like Northwestern (49 meetings), Purdue (85 meetings), Penn State (19 meetings), Wisconsin (17 meetings), and Nebraska (16 meetings).
Their geographical location in the Midwest and Rust Belt also makes it a no brainer.
I’m told that in the Chicago area, for example, ND fans outnumber both Illinois and Northwestern fans by a wide margin!
1 dollar
CU beat writer did a chat. Just started reading it.
Sounds like Brian (CU Insider) prefers B12 over P12:
[CU admin is] not as passive as fans want to think. Because CU is losing football games, fans are down on everybody over there. If CU was winning football games, I think fans would praise administration for their approach. This is not a situation where it’s smart to just jump to another conference without finding out all the info possible. It’s also not a situation where it’s smart for CU to come out publicly and say, “We’re actively looking around for the highest bidder!” Fans have to understand that there’s much more going on behind the scenes.
You haven’t heard a whole lot out of anyone in terms of “scoop.” What you’re mainly hearing is opinions passed off as “news” or you’ve got people with anonymous Twitter handles providing “news.” There’s not much scoop out there because there’s not many people talking
The basic message [from Pac-12 sources] I get from people is that Kliavkoff is really good, but got dealt a bad hand and may never get to show how good he is.
A few years ago, I did a story on the Champions Center being built and the money being raised and those high up in the AD were adamant that they would not have been able to build the Champions Center if they had stayed in the Big 12 - because they believed the donations increased dramatically from a lot of those west coast alums. So, I do think there are some positives that have come from the move. At this point, though, CU has to think about the bottom line and not just the alums. Staying in the Pac-12 could be the right move, but even then they won’t be going to Los Angeles and that’s a big loss when you talk about going to see alums.
Yeah. It used to be that watching college games was a cheaper option for many fans than going to a pro game. However this has changed. Here in “SEC Country” (Atlanta, GA), Dawgs tickets are now so expensive that many games no longer sellout. The teams have taken the advice of airline economists - there are some customers that they would rather do without.
This has phenomenon has deeper roots than just sports. It is really about how many state schools no longer serve the constituency they were meant to support; the general public. UCLA, Berkley, Michigan, Georgia, UT, South Carolina, UNC, UF, etc. have become so difficult to get in to for even in state students that they have effectively become private schools. As such, the type of student that is getting into these schools has changed. The sports crazed alumni fan base is dwindling.
If you look at where the Dawgs support is greatest, it is not in Atlanta, it is in the far flung areas of North and South Georgia outside the Atlanta Metro. Sure there are Dawgs fans in the suburbs and in the city as well, but they are not as rabid, and are unlikely to drive to Athens to watch a game, especially if they are not winning at a high level (I mean competing for a Natty). However, the actual alumni base for UGA is very Atlanta Metro heavy, especially in the Atlanta Suburbs and places like Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Alpharetta, etc. So you have this dichotomy where people who can afford to go to games either don’t care enough to go or are selective in the games they attend, while those who love UGA football the most cannot afford it. This is happening throughout society in many different areas.
After UGA won the title, I was shocked at how few people in Atlanta really cared. Compare that to when the Braves (uggghhhh!!) won the World Series. There were two parades.
Great analysis. Most of us kinda know most fans are priced out, but you did a good job clarifying it.
For the most part I agree, with ONE exception.
I never thought of South Carolina as being a particularly tough school to get into.
Their average SAT score of 1254 and percentage of applicants admitted at 63% is not particularly elite.
Much less so than the other schools you mentioned.
Don’t forget the “catacomb alumni” , they’re huge in Italy.
When did Oregon and Washington become so pious as to think blessing the B12 with their presence deserves a bigger share of B12 revenue. ESPN saw the PAC worth as $22 milliion and B12 around $55 million. They are stuck in a dying conference and want B12 to lay down for them?
Lol
He’s a pathological liar. Wrestling is fake and fun. The movies are fake and fun. Blow up dolls, tv dinners, holograms, Oculus…all fake and fun.
MHver just lies to you without the entertainment. He’s a dbag.
Say what you want about MHver, he did get THIS right.
https://twitter.com/MHver3/status/1516166017319411713
Maybe even a blind squirrel will catch a few nuts.
USC to BiG was being discussed in the webs soon after Texas and OU announced their departure for the SEC. This was prevalent on the BIG boards. That’s where MHver got that info, from boards.
Heck , UH1927 called the USC move months ago.
Except most people here were calling for a) an even BIGGER raid than that, AND b) saying that WE should move to the PAC under the theory that the PAC was more “stable.”
As we’ve now learned, the OPPOSITE was true.
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