- May 9th, 2012, 10:44 am
#390230
One would think the long term potential of Liberty would be much greater than Appalachian State as well. I think these conference commissioners are forgetting that we're only 40 years old. If they had the foresight to see the next 40 years they would take us in a the blink of an eye. We already broadcast our games nationwide on our own TV network for crying out loud. The thought process that your market is "only as big as your local city" is lost on me. I can name 10 big-time universities in small towns that are a part of a major conference because they have nationwide appeal. Technically the Lynchburg/Roanoke/Danville market is bigger than Madison, WI but the Badgers obviously have a national following.
Can someone explain to me why your LOCAL media market matters so much? Why are these commissioners not looking nationwide, or schools that have nationwide potential?
Take Rutgers for example, #1 media market in the country yet the Big-Ten didn't take them and the ACC didn't take them because outside of New Jersey NO ONE cares about Rutgers, and RU is probably the 4th or 5th college team in the Big Apple behind 'Cuse, PSU, UCONN, etc. Syracuse is 84th in the media rankings, but has twice as many Syracuse graduates living in NYC than Rutgers graduates and even PSU has more graduates in the Big Apple than Rutgers. It was an easy pick for the ACC to bring them in over Rutgers and the Big-Ten was smart to leave them out - the Big-Ten already owns the NYC media market with Penn in there.
Likewise South Bend, Indiana is the 97th ranked media market yet any conference in the country would love to have ND in there.
Again can someone explain to me why your local town matters in media rankings? Shouldn't the more important question be where do your alumni live?