Death of College Football in the Northeast

[OrangeAl]

That is a slight over statement about Land Grant. It is actually Land Grants and/or Flagships.

The northeast is the only region of the country in which states all chose, until very recently, to have private schools serve as what the Flagship state schools are to all other regions. And thus it is no anomaly that across the entire northeast, the only truly large college football fanbase, and easily the most passionate, is Penn St, which is PA's Land Grant.

The problem is that, without being the state's land grant university, you aren't really the state's flagship.

As much as I think every New Yorker should jump on the SU bandwagon, we're still not considered the representative of all people from Buffalo to Albany, New York City to Malone.

Even SUNY at Buffalo doesn't tug at the heartstrings of people more than 50 miles from their campus.

 

[bnoro]

Covers it all well.

Wins in nay years vey even several schools in ti northeast mean nothing. The issue is that there are nearly enough loyal, passionate fan per capita not even compared to the MT and PT schools.

So performance means nothing, it's about the size of fanbase? Huh?

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

The problem is that, without being the state's land grant university, you aren't really the state's flagship.

As much as I think every New Yorker should jump on the SU bandwagon, we're still not considered the representative of all people from Buffalo to Albany, New York City to Malone.

Even SUNY at Buffalo doesn't tug at the heartstrings of people more than 50 miles from their campus.

RE: the land grant thing.

I'm no expert on this exact subject, but the focal point of Land Grant universities ties in with homesteading + farming and the desire for more centralized higher education. By the 1860s, when Land Grant Universities became a thing, New York City was both a financial and manufacturing hub and Upstate, with its strong rail routes and the Erie Canal, was not as reliant on a farming economy as other states.

Plus, New York already had so many established colleges by that point and would only add more by 1900.

That is to say, the land grant thing never really took on here - I mean, the Land Grant University is Cornell.

 

[FrancoPizza]

So it's about the size of fanbase? Huh?

how you use the fanbase is more important. at least that’s what I’m learning on the other board which more closely resembles the scene from LA these days.

 

[WoadBlue]

The problem is that, without being the state's land grant university, you aren't really the state's flagship.

As much as I think every New Yorker should jump on the SU bandwagon, we're still not considered the representative of all people from Buffalo to Albany, New York City to Malone.

Even SUNY at Buffalo doesn't tug at the heartstrings of people more than 50 miles from their campus.

Tell that to UVA and UNC and Indiana and Cal-Berkeley and Oregon and Washington, to name a few. Being the state's Flagship means the state's Elite Liberal Arts university, which historically means, among other things, pointing toward the state's top law school and related graduate school programs, which are at that Flagship. The Land Grant is about Agriculture and all related sciences, including Engineering. Each type state U commands a huge following in all things, including sports, in states that early on had governments that took such schools seriously.

And schools knew that, with many acting to double their power. UGA, for example, was the state's old Flagship and fought very successfully to have the Land Grant added to it, which means what we see today: no matter how truly Elite GT is, UGA commands about 4 or 5 times more support from average GA citizens than GT.

U Tennessee did the same thing, but the reasons were about state politics and the Civil War. The Republican center of TN was around Knoxville, while the Nashville and Memphis areas quickly became strong Democrat as soon as that was allowed. If Tennesseee had created a Land Grant Tenn A&M, it almost certainly would have been in a small town near Nashville, the capital (Murfreesboro and Franklin most likely but towns like Gallatin and Lebanon also possible). As TN Republicans felt that such a school located in a Democrat area would hurt them in state politics, they fought tooth and nail, and even crookedly, to make certain all Land Grant money went to Knoxville.

 

[WoadBlue]

So performance means nothing, it's about the size of fanbase? Huh?

In terms of TV deals, YES. TV does not pay for Wins. All conference play is .500, after all. TV pays for viewers drawn.

 

[TexanMark]

Tennessee Titans

Maybe up by Huntsville

Atlanta and New Orleans NFL fans cover other parts of Bama

 

[bnoro]

In terms of TV deals, YES. TV does not pay for Wins. All conference play is .500, after all. TV pays for viewers drawn.

If UNC, Miami, Florida State and Clemson were 11-1/10-2 every year like Bama, Georgia, LSU, and Texas, the ACC's TV deal would be better. The issue is those "flagship programs" have been major underachievers (outside of Clemson) so the ACC looks weaker.

 

[Atlcuse44]

I always found the North-South, Pro-College dynamic interesting. I now have lived in the South longer than I lived up North (time flies). I've grown to love college football as a whole, I can watch college games all day. The NFL? Meh, I'll watch the big games. It helps this year since my favorite teams are the Eagles & Bills. If someone gave me a choice of free tickets to a regular season UGA game or a Falcons game, I'd go to the UGA game hands down - even against lower opponents (so would most football fans down here). If I was on a trip back to visit family up in Syracuse and had a choice of going to a regular season SU game or a Bills game, I'd probably choose the SU game. If you gave the 'casual' SU fan in CNY the same option (assuming the SU game is not against a FCS opponent) - they would probably pick the Bills game.