Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[ORD_Buckeye]

I was thinking about this too, but it's tough to guess how much Chicago's influence and the combinations of Purdue/Indiana fans affects the Hoosier state on a whole.

I think the extent of Notre Dame's influence in Chicago is severely overstated and based more on outdated notions and, more importantly, outdated demographics than current reality.

The solid core of blue collar Irish-Polish-Italian Catholics that historically fueled it has been greatly watered down. The children and grandchildren of those subway domers have gone off to other colleges, developed their own allegiances or simply don't have the same attachment that their fathers/grandfathers did. Secondly, the current wave of Catholic immigration (Polish, Mexican, Irish and Ukrainian) haven't replaced them. With the growth of soccer and ability to watch Euro league futball, they simply don't give a shit about American football. I've noticed a real shift between when I first lived in Chicago in the early 90s for two years and now.

I would still say that ND is bigger than any single Big Ten team, but the gap is nowhere near what it once was, and the overall interest in Big Ten football well overshadows that for ND. And if that's been the movement in Chicago, I have to believe that things might be similar in other old Catholic bastions of ND support such as NYC, Boston, Philly. The one thing in ND's favor in those markets is that they are overwhelmingly pro sports towns with nothing like the Saturday college football environment one finds in Chicago. Other than Philly and ped aggy, there's no real college football following to rival the domers.

Now I thought that last year might prove me wrong, but other than a some over exposure in the newspapers (again probably symptomatic of perception lagging reality and old school editors dictating an unwarranted amount of coverage) and a few lame domer flags showing up outside of bars, it really wasn't much of a big deal.

 

[ulukinatme]

Thats surprising. According to this article from 2011, Chicago is the 2nd largest TV market for ND fans, closely following New York. I'm not sure how they got their data, and honestly without a breakdown of the teams across all Chicago it's not a very good metric. Chicago is certainly a very pro sports oriented town though, and we're talking about a portion of their already large population which skews the numbers:

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

 

[ulukinatme]

I would still say that ND is bigger than any single Big Ten team, but the gap is nowhere near what it once was, and the overall interest in Big Ten football well overshadows that for ND. And if that's been the movement in Chicago, I have to believe that things might be similar in other old Catholic bastions of ND support such as NYC, Boston, Philly. The one thing in ND's favor in those markets is that they are overwhelmingly pro sports towns with nothing like the Saturday college football environment one finds in Chicago. Other than Philly and ped aggy, there's no real college football following to rival the domers.

I wouldn't be so sure about the above quote either. Times have changed, and based on surveys and statistics the same article I linked above estimates that 3 B1G teams have the largest number of fans today in the top 210 markets. It happens that the three largest also have large stadium capacities and a very good number of undergrads and alumni:

 

[Muck]

I would have thought Boston would be higher.

 

[ulukinatme]

I would have thought Boston would be higher.

If you consider theres 600,000 Bostonians, 127,000 of them being Irish fans is a pretty good margin. On the flip side, in Chicago theres 245,000 Irish fans estimated and the city holds roughly 2.7 million people. Again, they're basing this off statistics and surveys, so they're not going to be 100% accurate.

 

[Muck]

I wonder how many of them are southies.

 

[BigWoof31]

I would have thought Boston would be higher.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SAWX????

 

[LordJeffBuck]

It's more than a littie disengenous coming from Swofford. That 55% doesn't mean squat if your product is 2nd or 3rd in most of the markets it covers.

The ACC takes NC & VA. Any other States where they are the #1 product?

North Carolina and Virginia are 20 million people and growing fast, so that's not a bad market to own.

Ohio State owns the Columbus market, but would any other Big Ten school be better than 3rd in its market? Iowa and Nebraska, I suppose, to the extent that they have markets worth owning.

The 55% number may be disingenuous for Swofford, but it is important for the Big Ten in its attempts to expand the Big Ten Network. The goal is not necessarily to own the market, but to get your product into the market via cable. Hence the (alleged) importance of Rutgers (NYC) and Maryland (DC-Baltimore), and the courting of schools like Georgia Tech (Atlanta).

 

[Muck]

North Carolina and Virginia are 20 million people and growing fast, so that's not a bad market to own.

Ohio State owns the Columbus market, but would any other Big Ten school be better than 3rd in its market? Iowa and Nebraska, I suppose, to the extent that they have markets worth owning.

The 55% number may be disingenuous for Swofford, but it is important for the Big Ten in its attempts to expand the Big Ten Network. The goal is not necessarily to own the market, but to get your product into the market via cable. Hence the (alleged) importance of Rutgers (NYC) and Maryland (DC-Baltimore), and the courting of schools like Georgia Tech (Atlanta).

It's not just about individual school's in their respective market. It's about who is watching the conference as a whole.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, TSUN, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska are all currently comletely dominated by the B1G. The only state within the footprint that you could even suggest otherwise is Indiana, and that is arguable even before counting the weight of schools not named Indiana/Purdue.

New York is a mishmash but there are more B1G fans than any other single conference. Rutgers & Maryland will be solidly B1G once everything is said & done.

The ACC has NC & VA solidly locked up.
South Carolina? Clemson has fallen behind the Gamecocks.
Florida? FSU & Miami together don't match the Gators.
Georgia? ROFL
New York? (see above)
Pennsylvania? Pitt has roughly twice as many fans as Miami...so somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 total.
Massachusetts? ND probably locks it up.
Indiana? They probably gained some ground but a handful of games against ACC teams isn't going to outsell the B1G.

55 Million sounds great but if none of those people are watching your product, it's just blowing smoke.

 

[ulukinatme]

South Carolina? Clemson has fallen behind the Gamecocks.
Florida? FSU & Miami together don't match the Gators.
Georgia? ROFL

Maybe not, some of the estimates are pretty close, heres some more graphs from the website listed above. The numbers don't necessarily reflect the % of the state the fans occupy, as this accounts for all fans in the top 210 markets I think. I'm definitely scratching my head on the GT numbers, but they seem to have a strong makeup in Atlanta:

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I wouldn't be so sure about the above quote either. Times have changed, and based on surveys and statistics the same article I linked above estimates that 3 B1G teams have the largest number of fans today in the top 210 markets. It happens that the three largest also have large stadium capacities and a very good number of undergrads and alumni:

My quote was regarding ND vis-a-vis the Big Ten in Chicago. While ND might have more fans than any single Big Ten team (and I'm not really so sure of that any more since it seems like half the state of Michigan has moved here in the last twenty years, not to mention a huge Wisconsin presence), overall Chicago is much more a Big Ten town than a Notre Dame town today. In 90-92, I wouldn't have said that.

I can't help but think that the ND athletic department knows that and part of their push to have games in Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix is some lame hope that Mexicans will be the next wave of domer subway alumni. I think they're mistaken. I think the Mexicans just keep rooting for soccer.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Thats surprising. According to this article from 2011, Chicago is the 2nd largest TV market for ND fans, closely following New York. I'm not sure how they got their data, and honestly without a breakdown of the teams across all Chicago it's not a very good metric. Chicago is certainly a very pro sports oriented town though, and we're talking about a portion of their already large population which skews the numbers:

Chicago is definitely a pro sports town, but it's much, much more balanced than the NE cities. Walk around Lincoln Park or Lakeview on a Fall Saturday and you see thousands of people in college jerseys and sweatshirts going to college specific bars. Even off season, bars fly their Ohio State, Michigan, Wiscy etc. flags. Now the next day everyone (except the Wisconsin transplants) are all wearing Bears shit, but there's a much greater emphasis on college sports in Chicago than the DC-Boston corridor.

 

[cincibuck]

I think the extent of Notre Dame's influence in Chicago is severely overstated and based more on outdated notions and, more importantly, outdated demographics than current reality.

The solid core of blue collar Irish-Polish-Italian Catholics that historically fueled it has been greatly watered down. The children and grandchildren of those subway domers have gone off to other colleges, developed their own allegiances or simply don't have the same attachment that their fathers/grandfathers did. Secondly, the current wave of Catholic immigration (Polish, Mexican, Irish and Ukrainian) haven't replaced them. With the growth of soccer and ability to watch Euro league futball, they simply don't give a shit about American football. I've noticed a real shift between when I first lived in Chicago in the early 90s for two years and now.

I would still say that ND is bigger than any single Big Ten team, but the gap is nowhere near what it once was, and the overall interest in Big Ten football well overshadows that for ND. And if that's been the movement in Chicago, I have to believe that things might be similar in other old Catholic bastions of ND support such as NYC, Boston, Philly. The one thing in ND's favor in those markets is that they are overwhelmingly pro sports towns with nothing like the Saturday college football environment one finds in Chicago. Other than Philly and ped aggy, there's no real college football following to rival the domers.

Now I thought that last year might prove me wrong, but other than a some over exposure in the newspapers (again probably symptomatic of perception lagging reality and old school editors dictating an unwarranted amount of coverage) and a few lame domer flags showing up outside of bars, it really wasn't much of a big deal.

I'm going to guess that a number of cultural shifts affect Notre Dame's base:
1) It's go longer a school for those locked out of elite private schools because of their religion as those schools have dropped bans on Catholics and Jews.

2) There are no long lines of young men seeking to become priests or brothers. At the same time the age of the average priest has risen from 35 in 1970 to 63 today. ((http://www.georgetown.edu/news/average-priest-age-now-nearly-20-years-older.html)) More and more old priests are being replaced by priests from Africa and Latin America. Wait and see seems to be in effect here.

3) The Catholic church is now mainstream throughout the Midwest and is especially strong in big city suburbs.

4) At the same time the Church is losing % of the population of churchgoers to evangelical churches and churches such as Vineyard and Crossroads. (and 15% of the Population claims no religion, a growth of 11% in the last two decades) ((http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm))

5) Having an undergrad program with a base tuition of $45K per year has put Notre Dame out of reach of most of the families it was originally designed to help.

So going back to 1) Notre Dame is now itself an elite school - not necessarily a "Catholic" school.

None of this by itself makes that big a dent in the ND mystique, but added together, and especially with the decreasing % of "home grown" priests, I would think there would be a decline in the school's popularity. On the other hand - elite sells and I'm going to make a SWAG that Catholic High Schools produce more state championship teams in football in those states that allow them to compete in the state tourneys. That's a great recruiting network to draw on.

 

[ulukinatme]

My quote was regarding ND vis-a-vis the Big Ten in Chicago. While ND might have more fans than any single Big Ten team (and I'm not really so sure of that any more since it seems like half the state of Michigan has moved here in the last twenty years, not to mention a huge Wisconsin presence), overall Chicago is much more a Big Ten town than a Notre Dame town today. In 90-92, I wouldn't have said that.

I can't help but think that the ND athletic department knows that and part of their push to have games in Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix is some lame hope that Mexicans will be the next wave of domer subway alumni. I think there mistaken. I think the Mexicans just keep rooting for soccer.

I gotcha, I certainly wouldn't refute that Chicago isn't dominated by the B1G when you consider all the teams in proximity. I just was surprised to hear that ND is declining in Chicago when it's estimated to be the 2nd largest market for the Irish (Not by %, just raw numbers).

Yeah, some of the destinations are head scratchers if they're trying to expand their fanbase. I figured this scheduling had more to do with recruiting and less to do with spreading the brand, but you never know what they're up to.

 

[cincibuck]

Chicago is definitely a pro sports town, but it's much, much more balanced than the NE cities. Walk around Lincoln Park or Lakeview on a Fall Saturday and you see thousands of people in college jerseys and sweatshirts going to college specific bars. Even off season, bars fly their Ohio State, Michigan, Wiscy etc. flags. Now the next day everyone (except the Wisconsin transplants) are all wearing Bears shit, but there's a much greater emphasis on college sports in Chicago than the DC-Boston corridor.

And the strange thing is the lack of support for Illinois in Chicago. One of the top public schools in the US, highly ranked in math and engineering, and all but ignored in the Chicago media. Their football program just never seems to get going for more than 3 or 4 years every third decade.

Red Grange, where have you gone?