[Sly Fox]

School .............................. TV Mkt ... Enrollment .... 2011 Football Attendance

Arkansas-Little Rock ............... 56 ........ 13,167 .................. N/A
Arkansas State ..................... 181 ....... 13,438 .................. 21,257
Florida Atlantic ...................... 38 ........ 29,290 .................. 17,565
Florida International ............... 16 ........ 47,966 ................... 18,411
Louisiana-Lafayette ............... 124 ....... 16,885 .................. 29,171
Louisiana-Monroe .................. 137 ......... 8,400 .................. 15,512
Middle Tennessee State .......... 29 ........ 24,660 .................. 18,407
North Texas ........................... 5 ......... 33,422 ................. 18,864
South Alabama ...................... 60 ........ 15,007 .................. 18,442
Troy ................................... 119 ....... 29,689 .................. 17,898
Western Kentucky ................. 182 ....... 21,000 .................. 16,637

Appalachian State .................. 25* ...... 20,222 .................. 26,211
Charlotte .............................. 25 ........ 25,277 .................. N/A
Georgia State ......................... 9 ......... 32,000 ................. 14,286
JMU .................................... 178 ........ 18,971 ................. 25,002
Liberty ................................. 66 ........ 13,400* ................ 16,419
Louisiana Tech ...................... 137 ....... 11,581 .................. 21,518
ODU ..................................... 43 ....... 24,125 .................. 19,818
Texas State .......................... 47 ........ 34,113 .................. 15,102
UTSA ................................... 36 ........ 31,114 .................. 35,521

Notes: Arkansas-Little Rock does not sponsor football and Charlotte won't have a team on the field until 2013. Louisiana-Monroe is prone to stunting to keep their home attendance numbers up. They have a "home" game in Little Rock vs. the Arkansas Razorbacks this September. Meanwhile Louisiana-Lafayette (they prefer you drop the reference to their city) led the nation in increased attendance this past fall by lifting their average by 12k from 2010. As for television markets, Appy is listed as Charlotte but is far removed from either the Queen City or the Triad.

[R i]

Looks like some good info. Could you explain the TV market Number ? Is it just lynchburg or ... what goes into making that number?

[Sly Fox]

Those are the numbers Nielsen uses for 2012 to measure market size upon which stations can sell advertising. TV markets have played a key role in realignment up to this point. Our market includes Roanoke & Danville as well.

[R i]

Those are the numbers Nielsen uses for 2012 to measure market size upon which stations can sell advertising. TV markets have played a key role in realignment up to this point. Our market includes Roanoke & Danville as well.

Lower is better?

[Sly Fox]

Yes, TV market #1 is currently New York with #2 L.A. closing in fast. Roanoke-Lynchburg is the 66th largest TV market int he country. And while we obviously aren't the dominant school in Roanoke or the New River Valley, the same can be said for a slew of other schools in this discussion. Not many folk in the Florida panhandle that prop up the market size of Mobile/Pensacola give a rip about South Alabama football. But the numbers do matter to TV execs and conference commissioners.

Frankly we measure up nicely alongside many of the other candidates. That is something much of the nation doesn't yet realize.

[Rooster Cogburn]

http://goo.gl/KPsFG
http://goo.gl/qHmb4

[LUconn]

Wow, just a surface look at those TV numbers really hurts JMU

[TH Spangler]

What's the projected enrollment for LU next year? And the year after?

Every ODU game is sold out ..... they could put 40,000 in seats if they had the space.

[Sly Fox]

The shiny new toy aspect of ODU will start wearing off this year if they don't win at least at the same level as last season. Look at the gawdy numbers that UTSA put up last year in their first season of football. I can assure you it wasn't for the quality of product on the field ... especially with the refined tastes of Texans.

Yeah, TV hurts both JMU & Appy quite a bit. It is one of many reasons that we are getting looks ahead of them from some of these leagues despite their programs clearly being ahead of our on the field with bigger crowds.

[NotAJerry]

Are Nielsen DMAs still that highly thought of? I've got a friend who does TV advertising for a company here in DC and he says that MSAs are being looked at more than Nielsen these days. The reason is exemplified in a place like Austin. According to MSA numbers, Austin is the 34th biggest metro area in the US and grew by nearly 70k from '00-'10. According to the Nielsen numbers, Austin dropped from 44 to 47 in TV markets and lost more than 20k people last year. The MSA for the area is just below 1.8 million people while the Nielsen DMA is 686k.

I know Nielsen DMAs were the be all and end all at one point, but they're so completely different from other counting measures that I thought they were being pushed aside.