Best fans in college football

by **Big12Mustang** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:28 pm

Very cool read. Here is the AAC excerpt but read the whole article so you can understand how they came up with ranking:

The American Athletic Conference (AAC) is the product of conference realignment, and a fascinating story. The former Big East schools are desperately trying to construct a league that can keep the AAC in discussion of the Power 6 conferences rather than fading back into the pack. To some degree, our analyses suggest that the AAC has made a few good moves. We already rank the AAC as the number five conference, and there is reason to believe that the AAC has landed several programs with bright futures.

Number one on our list of the most supportive fan bases is SMU. This is both a surprising result, and also a result that illustrates the benefit of our approach. While the last few seasons have seen SMU take a step forward and qualify for bowl games, over the ten years of data, the team has tended to play sub .500 football. The fan support provided to SMU relative to the on field performance has been outstanding. This issue is best illustrated via a comparison between SMU and Cincinnati. Over the ten year period of our analysis, SMU was a four win per year team while Cincinnati was a seven or eight win team. However, while Cincinnati won almost double the number of games as SMU, their revenues were about 20% less. Our interpretation of these results is that SMU has a sleeping giant of a fan base, and it would like make sense for SMU to invest heavily in their program.

In second place, we have the Memphis Tigers. Memphis is fairly similar to SMU in that they have very solid support (30K+ attendance) for a team that has been average on the field. It is these two programs that tell us that the AAC may have a chance to remain a major conference. We suspect that if SMU and Memphis become on-field successes their fans will be highly supportive.

One the bottom half of our rankings, we had a couple of surprises. We have already mentioned the issue with Cincinnati. UCONN has generated revenues similar to SMU but these have been generated with a better performing team, and as a member of the former Big East. Likewise, Louisville was also a bit of a surprise. And again, the issue was that the fan support is just not what we should suspect given the Cardinalsâ€™ on-field success. The Louisville story is also interesting because in our analysis of the brand equity of college basketball teams, Louisville finished number one overall. The UConn and Louisville results suggest that it is a challenge to build fan equity in football when you are historically a basketball school.

https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/esma/col ... -football/

by **Bergermeister** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:30 pm

Good gawd. :roll:

by **mrydel** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:32 pm

It's a year old a totally irrelevant now.

by **Nacho** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:36 pm

finally the recognition we so richly deserve.

by **Lebanese4Life** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:37 pm

Haha, this is nonsense.

by **Nacho** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:42 pm

i want to thank june most especially for bolting during our 0-12 season. we couldn't have done it without him.

by **SMU2007** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 4:43 pm

Sometimes you gotta just use your brain and realize that just bc it is "published" doesn't mean that it means a damn thing

by **Big12Mustang** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:17 pm

Read it right, if we were living up to our potentials on the field, we would have great support.

by **Big12Mustang** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:18 pm

You all make me hate being an SMU fan. If you would read an article and look at the positives instead of trying to beat the school up, we would do much better.

by **leopold** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:18 pm

Whoever actually shows to our games may truly be the best fans in college football.

Reminds me of those poor Cleveland fans from 'Major League.'

by **sbsmith** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:20 pm

Big12Mustang wrote:You all make me hate being an SMU fan. If you would read an article and look at the positives instead of trying to beat the school up, we would do much better.

You're a TCU fan.

by **Big12Mustang** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:29 pm

sbsmith wrote:
Big12Mustang wrote:You all make me hate being an SMU fan. If you would read an article and look at the positives instead of trying to beat the school up, we would do much better.

You're a TCU fan.

Oh yeah I'm a TCU fan, which is why I wasted money getting SMU basketball and SMU football season tickets, donating to the mustang club, buying SMU gear and all the little things TCU fans do, oh and I don't have tickets to the carter so that makes me a TCU fan, right? Shut up with your nonsense. You gave me crap because I left a SMU v Temple game (that we were losing big early on) at halftime to go to a TCU game with my girlfriend who graduated from there. If you were screwing a frog girl i'm sure you would be at their games as well, especially this year (which by the way have not been to one of their games at all this year, I'm being a good TCU fan and watching the debacle at Ford every Sat

)

by **GoMustAAngs2007** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:50 pm

Big12Mustang wrote:
sbsmith wrote:
Big12Mustang wrote:You all make me hate being an SMU fan. If you would read an article and look at the positives instead of trying to beat the school up, we would do much better.

You're a TCU fan.

Oh yeah I'm a TCU fan, which is why I wasted money getting SMU basketball and SMU football season tickets, donating to the mustang club, buying SMU gear and all the little things TCU fans do, oh and I don't have tickets to the carter so that makes me a TCU fan, right? Shut up with your nonsense. You gave me crap because I left a SMU v Temple game (that we were losing big early on) at halftime to go to a TCU game with my girlfriend who graduated from there. If you were screwing a frog girl i'm sure you would be at their games as well, especially this year (which by the way have not been to one of their games at all this year, I'm being a good TCU fan and watching the debacle at Ford every Sat )

Any SMU fan who cares enough to read and post on PonyFans, no matter how happy/mean-spirited/drunk/stone cold sober/critical/delusional, has my respect. I would venture a guess that those who read and post here and live in Dallas regularly attend games and those who live elsewhere would attend games if they lived in Dallas. We may not agree on everything but by posting here, attending games, and simply caring about our alma mater's teams, we are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

My respect extends to Big12 regardless of the number of TCU games he attends. I've been to AGC a few times (never missed an SMU game for a TCU game though) and it's a nice place to watch football. I have close friends who are passionate TCU fans but I will never, ever root for them.

We really should direct our animosity and energy at friends and fellow alumni who don't give a crap about SMU athletics - the ones who bring their dogs to the boulevard, the ones who are on the boulevard but then head over to Mi Cocina for Mambo Taxis when the game starts. The ones who post pictures of their kids on Facebook wearing Longhorn/Aggie/Baylor bear attire. These people disgust me and should have their diplomas taken away from them.

by **Pony Fan** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 6:06 pm

^^^^^^

This

by **Topper** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 6:36 pm

The best fans in college football are the ones that show up game after game, year after year, to watch bad football such as the ones who were Cornerstone Package members at SMU the year after the DP and who have remained loyal to the program despite many attempts to destroy it by administration. Without the support of those people, year after bad year, including a four year season ticket purchase up-front, there would be no SMU football.