PonyFans.com

Interesting article, tells you how many fans each school has and divides the fans in each market between the 120 F.B.S. schools. We rank 97.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

"Even with the losses of Texas A&M, Nebraska and Colorado, the Big 12 — as it stands on paper today — still has some football muscle, with about 8.1 million fans between the remaining 9 schools. Football is a big deal in this part of the country.

The conference’s survival would be in grave danger, of course, if Texas and Oklahoma were to leave as well. And there aren’t very many attractive expansion targets. Brigham Young, ranking 43rd in the country with about 700,000 fans, would be appealing enough from an economic standpoint. But schools like S.M.U., Houston and Rice have very small fan bases — under 200,000 each — in the extremely competitive market for Texas football.

One wonders if there isn’t some second-guessing about T.C.U. — scheduled to join the Big East next year — which also has to battle against other Texas teams but does a little better with about 400,000 fans.

If the Big 12 were to collapse, Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor might have trouble latching on elsewhere: their fan bases each rank outside the top 50 nationally."

how bout rankings by discetionary income per fan? Ya know, if advertising is so important.

Hoop Fan wrote:how bout rankings by discetionary income per fan? Ya know, if advertising is so important.

now that would be interesting. but you'd probably see it skewed disproportionately to level of play on the field.

Winning = fans

Just sayin

The PonyGrad wrote:Winning = fans

Just sayin

It's not conference warfare, it's math!

bcs conference equals increased fan support. Its a lot more exciting playing Oklahoma or Baylor, for that matter, than Northwestern St.

Interesting article. The biggest problem I see with it is the following "adjustment" he makes to these rankings "I've adjusted the results based on a comparison to the college football revenues received by each team". By doing this, he has created an inherent bias towards the BCS conference teams.

To bring up our favorite whipping boy - Baylor - they will be well ahead of TCU in this ranking simply because of the money they have siphoned off of ut/ou/atm, etc.

Plus think of how many google searches were done in college station of "baylor" the last month trying to get Ken Starr's phone number/email...

The sad thing is that college football is focused on $$$$$$ instead of how to improve the game, make it more competitive, and bringing more schools into the mix instead of fewer. The more athletes who are eligible to play for the national championship the better IMO.

I read the article and all I can say is it's a typical NYT sports piece. Big on flash, but if you look closely at what's behind the curtain it falls apart on common sense and facts. For instance:
1) Common Census NCAAf1-A FAN MAP states, " This map is highly inaccurate ", so why quote from it and show it.

Here are some hard facts to keep in mind when reading the various team rankings in the NYT. I find their sampling highly suspect, which they themselves say is not meaningful.

2) April, 2010 Metropolitan Statistical Areas show:
D/FW - 6.372mil (4th)
Atl - 5.269mil (9th in U.S.)
Hou - 5.947mil (6th)
Mia - 5.565mil (8th)
Tamp - 2.783mil (19th)
Stl - 2.813mil (18th)

3) August Nielsen's Designated TV Market Area Rankings shows:
D/FW - 2.95mil (5th)
Atl - 2.407mil (8th)
Hou - 2.177mil (10)
Mia - 1.581mil (16)
Tamp - 1.795mil (14th)
Stl - 1.259mil (21)
4) State Population
MO - 5.956mil
KS - 2.797mil
TX - 28mil plus
SEC states combined population - 48mil plus

In the article they show Kansas and k-State combined, have about the same number of individuals following their football teams as as Mizzou. Look at the state populations, are they counting pigs and chickens as their followers? While Kansas does pull some from the KC area, remember Mizzou is the only true FBS in state and they also draw a lot from down state Illinois. Auburn has a larger following than Alabama? Georgia Tech has a bigger following than UGA? Illinois following is about the same as Texas Tech? Etc., etc.

Give me some more of that stuff they're drinking up in NYC.

StangCP wrote:

The PonyGrad wrote:Winning = fans

Just sayin

It's not conference warfare, it's math!

The "math" is apparently based on some survey of fan interest.

Again, Winning = fans, especially in the DFW area.
As another mentioned, playing AQ competion also increases interest and fans.

It is not just some arbitrary "math"
It is a cross-section in time that can change.