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CU Medallion [55823]
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Where we stand relative to others schools (data provided).
Dec 7, 2012, 8:59 AM
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Yesterday I made some comments that were challenged regarding our fan base relative to other schools. Well, I was mostly wrong in my assumptions. Seems the data shed light on the reasons behind the schools that allied to push for the statement we saw yesterday.
Bottom line is, those schools have the biggest fan bases in the ACC, with the exception of FSU, which is smaller than I would have expected and Miami, which was not one of the schools that pushed for the statement and does have a big fan base. Here's the full post with data and links.
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/
For those who don't care to read, these tables summarize it pretty well:
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110%er [9673]
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Link is blocked for me. How does the article define a "fan"?***
Dec 7, 2012, 9:02 AM
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MVP [508]
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It's complicated, but here's an excerpt...
Dec 7, 2012, 9:09 AM
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The premise of the study is this: take the 210 television media markets in the United States, figure out how many college football fans they have, and then allocate them between the 120 current Football Bowl Subdivision programs.
¶The first part of the problem isn’t as easy as you might think, because enthusiasm for college football varies radically across different parts of the country — far more than for other sports.
¶One way to estimate the regional variances is to look at Google search traffic. For instance, according to Google Insights for Search, the term “college football” is searched for about 5 times as often in Birmingham, Alabama as it is in New York City, relative to overall search traffic.
¶In other words, on a per-capita basis, there are probably about 5 times as many football fans in Birmingham as there are in New York. So although the New York media market is about 10 times larger, it has fewer than twice as many college football fans as Birmingham.
New York, because of its very large population, is still the largest market in the country for college football. But only barely: Atlanta has nearly as many college football fans, for instance, based on an extrapolation from the Google data, while Dallas (and even Birmingham) aren’t far behind.
¶The second part of the challenge is dividing the fans in each market between the 120 F.B.S. schools.
¶One effort to study this is through something called the CommonCensus Sports Map Project, an online survey that asked fans to pick which college football team they’re most loyal to as well as to enter their geographic coordinates. After having collected more than 30,000 responses over the past several years, this has allowed the CommonCensus folks to divide the country up between the different college teams into what looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.
¶The CommonCensus data also allows you to zoom in on any particular region, and develop an estimate of how fan loyalties are divided in any particular part of the country.
¶Because this survey is not quite scientific — although the CommonCensus curators have made some effort to screen out ‘spam’ responses — I’ve adjusted the results based on a comparison to the college football revenues received by each team, according to disclosure data filed with the federal government. Teams that had a significantly higher- or lower-than-expected number of fans in the CommonCensus results in comparison to their revenues had their results adjusted accordingly. (The team affected most profoundly by this is Arkansas State, which was rather popular in the CommonCensus poll but which brings in few revenues from college football and doesn’t usually sell out its small stadium.)
¶There are a few other kinks to work out. The CommonCensus poll did not include Western Kentucky, a relatively new F.B.S. program, as one of its choices. (I assigned it half of its home market of Bowling Green, Ky., as well as small portions of Louisville and Lexington.) And it doesn’t provide data for Hawaii and Alaska (I gave most of the former to the University of Hawaii while ignoring the latter — sorry Alaskan football fans.)
Nevertheless, this allows us to develop an estimate of how many fans there are for each team — and where they are located.
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All-In [30593]
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110%er [6851]
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Yea, but we don't have a contract with Walmart!***
Dec 7, 2012, 9:09 AM
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CU Medallion [55823]
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Very interesting. I am still heartened by where we fall re:
Dec 7, 2012, 9:23 AM
[ in reply to Take a look at these numbers ] |
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the ACC.
We're easily tops in football (if you don't count ND, and I don't). Barker and the BOT should be calling the shots. Not Swofford and UNC.
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Legend [16938]
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Re: Take a look at these numbers
Dec 7, 2012, 9:55 AM
[ in reply to Take a look at these numbers ] |
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Seriously, continuing to link to these economics of sports articles is insanely tiresome. These sports beat writers do not have the slightest background to enable them to do the forensic accounting it would take to actually compare athletic department budgets. THERE ARE NO STANDARDIZED REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENTS!!!!!!!! Every single state will have different rules and private schools will have yet another set of rules. Then, depending on how you organize your booster organizations, you could render whatever rules there are obsolete - since even a public school could run its booster organization as a private entity. Not one of these articles has ever made an attempt to standardize anything and not one has quoted a number close to Clemson's total athletic income. It is isn't just apples to oranges. It's apples to penguins. While Clemson has economic challenges to face it does no good to continue to spread the idea that we are being grossly outmatched financially. You're playing into the hands of the very people you claim to be worried about by giving them fodder for the everspreading myth of our growing inferiority.
I have the misfortune of living in Columbia and since the loss all I hear on both sports talk stations (every show) and even from so-called Clemson fans is non stop bashing. And posts like these make the way to the hacks on air and then get spewed out as facts . It gets stated openly as fact that Clemson now lags Carolina by 15-20 million dollars a year, could be 40 million a year when SEC network launches. It doesn't matter they just make sh*t up. And the casual listener doesn't actually fact check anything. They just go home and talk about how the ACC is about to dissolve and Clemson won't be financially viable in another few years anyway. This water cooler talk trickling down over time to parents in and around football in South Carolina will be far more damaging that the $5-$6 million we might currently lag South Carolina annually - but pay no attention to the fact that we have a reserve and an excellent bond rating and that USC is at their borrowing limit and has a downgraded bond rating. Our athletic administration has made some dubious decisions in the 30 years I've been old enough to actually follow Clemson football. But, raising money is not, nor has ever been one of them.
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CU Medallion [55823]
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Money wasn't the sole purpose of the initial post.
Dec 7, 2012, 10:06 AM
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It was to shed some light on why the 5 schools that aligned to push for the statement did so. Turns out, we have mostly the biggest fan bases and yes, of course, that does ultimately tie in to revenue.
I am not overly concerned about revenue. I am concerned that Clemson is in a great position within the ACC and isn't using that position to be as proactive as it could be in securing our football future.
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Legend [16938]
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Re: Money wasn't the sole purpose of the initial post.
Dec 7, 2012, 10:20 AM
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I was responding directly to york's link. Although I think the methodology in the article you linked to is a little dubious it makes for a more interesting debate than the articles that present the financials as fact - when they are anything but. The article you link to openly admits the flaws and discusses the challenges in determining the actual size of a college fan base - which is ultimately what matters when it comes to growing TV revenue.
Part of why I refuse to join the fear and doom gang is that by any tangible measurement Clemson is one of the biggest programs in college football. We're no Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State or Michigan but there is a steep drop off from those four. And the numbers in that article reflect that. No matter what happens with the ACC, Clemson will find a good home. But, I'm not sure people aren't overlooking just how much value this Notre Dame deal might bring to this conference. Everyone got their panties in a twist over the partial football membership but they're tied to NBC for a few more years anyway. The value Notre Dame brings in tier 2 sports for a future ACC network is huge and they came into this conference agreeing to the $50 million dollar buyout so have almost no legal way out of it.
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CU Medallion [55823]
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I hate to see college football become like the EPL.
Dec 7, 2012, 11:24 AM
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That's the English Premier League (soccer). Used to be that fans and teams wanted to win the title or win the FA Cup as a measure of a good season. Now the main goal is to finish in the Top 4 of the league in order to secure a place in next season's Champion's League tournament. And why is that? Because of the incredible TV revenue received by CL teams.
But that is where we are headed. It is already the case that each conference wants as many teams in the BCS as possible. Why? Because of the money. And the conference realignments are all about TV revenue. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the current system.
Not sure how the playoff system affects revenues, but I'm sure it will.
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All-TigerNet [11478]
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FSU fans
Dec 7, 2012, 9:06 AM
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This would have looked a lot different in the 90s. However, many of the fans that would have claimed FSU then now have a history of leg, ankle and foot injuries to recover from. Bandwagons keep getting taller and taller. The x-ray machines will be overrun in Columbia when Scar starts to head downhill. People will be jumping off at lightspeed.
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Oculus Spirit [81989]
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It's laughable when you hear Auburn and Alabama fans try
Dec 7, 2012, 10:36 AM
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to say that their rivalry is the best in college football. When you just have to look at #1 & #2 to understand.
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Fan [60]
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Re: Where we stand relative to others schools (data provided).
Dec 7, 2012, 11:33 AM
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The report is a joke. You mean to tell me that Georgia Tech and Clemson almost twice as large a fanbase as Georgia. That should end any use of the statistics used in the report.
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