(12-13-2011 10:01 AM)Oh Really? Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 09:00 AM)ECUPirated Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 08:08 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 08:00 AM)Jugnaut Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 07:46 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Attendance is a pretty good indicator of a fanbase's passion for the school. It's also a pretty good indicator of how we draw in bowl games. But for the Big East football is more of a loss leader for basketball, the simplest way to drive up the TV money for the non-football schools. Fankly it's mind-blowing that football attendance doesn't matter to the Big East but we'll continue to pave our own way. Like another poster said I'd much rather be in a southern conference. The Big East would've been nothing more than a pass thru league like it has been for many.

Attendance is a pretty good indicator of ECU fans not ever having anything important to do on a Saturday zing!

For ECU fans that is THE most important thing to do on a Saturday. Once again our culture vs. BE culture couldn't be any more different.

You got it. :ecu:

Let's see

Choice one - Tailgate and Pirates game

Choice two - Mow the grass, wash the car, change the oil

Pretty easy choice.

Lots of stuff to do here, troll. Play golf, shopping, go to the beach, boating, fishing, hunting....or watch other teams on TV.
I think it's stupid to put all of this effort into football and if a school fills the seats then the rest of these teams who can't fill their stadium start busting on the city, the school, the fans. This must be the flame ECU board. I guess this league wants team who can't fill their stadium.
Some "market" that is.
This league is dumb not to include ECU. Flat out dumb as a box of rocks. What do you think they're doing in State College or South Bend on a
Saturday? Or Tallahassee or Gainsville or Austin? I guess they don't have anything better to do either.
You cannot cover the stink that is the Big East Conference now. It's so going to come back to roost.

Oh Really,

I assume you were bustin chops on the Jugnaut and not me. We're on the same page.

(12-13-2011 08:04 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Those millions would've helped us keep up in the arms race. Make no mistake about it that would've been huge for ECU. We've been doing things the hard way for a long times in terms of money. That's part of the reason TH wants to expand again; More revenue that we can actually control.

Stop with the excuses. Please.

There are a number of programs that have developed themselves to the point that AQ conferences can't say no to them - not in times when the conference is filling a hole created by defections, but in good times. Those schools have developed their programs without the help of AQ revenue but simply by winning games.

Start with Utah. Under Urban Meyer, they developed themselves into one of the best programs in the country. After he left, they continued to win, convincing everyone that they were for real as a program & not just shooting star. The Pac Ten grabbed them as an expansion move, not to fill a hole.

TCU did the same thing. They developed a winning program that sustained itself for well over a decade. The Big East grabbed them as an expansion candidate, not to fill a hole.

Boise State has positioned itself the same way with long term sustained success. First the Mountain West grabbed them as an expansion move & now the Big East.

If ECU were to achieve the same success as any of these 3 have in recent years, they would be grabbed up in a heart beat. However, their progress has been more like Marshall & Fresno State, both of whom soared for a few years but who then faded, crashed, & burned when they fell back to earth.

it's unfortunate that ECU doesn't have the money. This is all about competition. A lot of schools are competing for the same prize. It's a hard road. The challenge is to find a way to win with limited resources. You simply have to do better than 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years to be positioned as an expansion candidate.

(12-12-2011 09:51 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Totally agree.

*Sigh*

Why on Earth did you bump this?

Melky....what I was saying is that the BE TV revenue GOING FORWARD would have been nice. For now we'll probably adopt the Boise, Utah and TCU scheduling philosphy. That's about all we can do now.

(12-13-2011 10:53 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 08:04 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Those millions would've helped us keep up in the arms race. Make no mistake about it that would've been huge for ECU. We've been doing things the hard way for a long times in terms of money. That's part of the reason TH wants to expand again; More revenue that we can actually control.

Stop with the excuses. Please.

There are a number of programs that have developed themselves to the point that AQ conferences can't say no to them - not in times when the conference is filling a hole created by defections, but in good times. Those schools have developed their programs without the help of AQ revenue but simply by winning games.

Start with Utah. Under Urban Meyer, they developed themselves into one of the best programs in the country. After he left, they continued to win, convincing everyone that they were for real as a program & not just shooting star. The Pac Ten grabbed them as an expansion move, not to fill a hole.

TCU did the same thing. They developed a winning program that sustained itself for well over a decade. The Big East grabbed them as an expansion candidate, not to fill a hole.

Boise State has positioned itself the same way with long term sustained success. First the Mountain West grabbed them as an expansion move & now the Big East.

If ECU were to achieve the same success as any of these 3 have in recent years, they would be grabbed up in a heart beat. However, their progress has been more like Marshall & Fresno State, both of whom soared for a few years but who then faded, crashed, & burned when they fell back to earth.

it's unfortunate that ECU doesn't have the money. This is all about competition. A lot of schools are competing for the same prize. It's a hard road. The challenge is to find a way to win with limited resources. You simply have to do better than 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years to be positioned as an expansion candidate.

Melky,

sometimes you crack me up. Winning is part of it, but it ain't got a flippin thing to do with the BE invites except for Boise. I'm not gonna pick on any particular team, but llook at the standings this year and over the last 10 years. Besides Boise/TCU, no team can call themselves the nonAQ Juggernaut. This ain't about ECU winning, it's about Markets, simple and sweet. And the OP is right. Money increases opportunity. Being in and AQ conference that brings that money increases opportunity. The ECUs,Southern Miss's, Marshalls, UCF's, Houston's, SMU's, nonAQ have proprotionately achieved more with less resources. Maybe not every year, but how many coaches have been pulled from CUSA teams and moved on to AQ leagues, and then as result those teams went through some down years going through a new system. Come on man.

(12-13-2011 10:42 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 09:38 AM)piratefan1975 Wrote:  Schools with large fan bases and good attendance would be pretty stupid to not attempt to display their strength while downplaying their weakness, such as market size.

Conversely, schools with very small fan bases and no interest in their program (as compared to flagship programs within their states) would attempt to diminish the importance of attendance and games, and divert the attention to other factors such as market size, that would play to their advantage.

I prefer common sense.

1. Schools build on-campus stadiums to capacities that "fit" the size of the fan base. That's why Tulane, for instance, just announced a cozy, on-campus stadium that will adequately fit their needs and can be expanded in the future. They're not building 100,000 seats to begin with.

2. I would venture to say that the percentage of a total fan base that actually attends games is remarkably similar across the board. Common excuses that "we have more to do in big cities than go to college football games" doesn't hold water. There's no way to measure this, but using attendance is probably a pretty reliable measure of the popularity of a program, regardless of markets or state boundaries, etc. Using Florida as an example, UF probably has the largest fan base of any school in the state; followed by FSU, then Miami, then USF, then UCF, etc. Sure, Miami may draw more from the Miami area than FSU, but overall, the sizes of the fan bases are probably in line with attendance.

3. Fan bases extend way beyond DMA's. All 90,000+ fans that visit The Swamp on Saturdays don't live in the Gainsville DMA. Nor do all 32,000 fans that visit Nippert Stadium live in Cincinnati. That would indicate that the University of Florida probably has more market "reach" than Cincinnati, just due to the size of the fan base.

4. Using Cincinnati as an example, they draw 32,000 people per game while OSU draws over 105,000. What's more impressive is that OSU is at 102% capacity. There's no telling how many they could fit if they had a stadium large enough to hold everyone. Again, common sense tells me the relative strength of the fanbase in the "pecking order" in the state. While Cincinnati is more popular than Ohio or Miami (OH) or Kent State, they pale in comparison to the state flagship in terms of popularity.

5. The top 10 for attendance in 2011 are Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State, Texas, Tennessee, LSU, UGA, Florida and Texas A&M. Common sense tells me that those are some of the most popular programs in the country. If you took a national poll for favorite teams, the top 10 would look eerily similar to that. Believe it or not, there is a correlation between attendance and popularity (size of the fan base).

A number of good points in your post. Just want to correct the facts in your Florida example in which you list attendance ranking with Miami 3rd & USF 4th. Since the decline of Miami football coinciding with its entrance into the ACC & with the emergence of USF football as they have built their program, USF has higher attendance than Miami most of the time in recent years. Here's how their attendance compares over the past 4 years (in the thousands) with the most recent year first:

USF -- 40,8 - 52,5 - 49,6 - 53,1
Miami - 52,5 - 47,5 - 46,2 - 43,5

You have very effectively articulated the pro-ECU argument. As I said , all good points. However, it must be balanced against the other side of the argument. Attendance doesn't make money for anyone else in the conference. Only for the home team. TV contracts make money for everyone. Hence, the market size argument.

Teams that draw TV viewership outside their market do so because there's interest that goes beyond the loyal following. That interest is normally generated by a winning record. ECU has had only 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years, i.e. since the turn of the century. That's a problem for the notion that they will generate interest beyond their fan base. Teams that don't have winning seasons don't go to bowls, so it also undermines the traveling fan base argument. Moreover, ECU isn't close to any other Big East schools, so just how far are they going to travel even to regular season games?

The other problem that ECU has even with their attendance is their ceiling. There's only so high that their popularity can go because they're in a state with a population of 9 million, about the same size as New Jersey. IN NC, they have competition form UNC & NC State, both of whom draw more fans than ECU does. While ECU fans love to disparage Duke & Wake, the fact is that they combine for more fans than ECU draws, so they count for something in the college football landscape. Finally, NC has one of the best I-AA programs in the country & it draws very well for I-AA. Lastly, there's an NFL franchise in the state with its own fan base. None of this is to disparage what ECU has accomplished. Only to point out that it is a market with a lot of competition for the local college football fan.

For all the criticism of the Big East, their expansion plans have been guided by a team of media consultants, not by some group of village idiots as is often claimed here. Undoubtedly these consultants, experts in their field, have looked at all the factors you present & more. They've drawn a different conclusion than you have.

I appreciate your post and of course do disagree about a few of them. I have to disagree about our ceiling. When you open a 7k stadium expansion and it's full the first 2 years of it's existance and we are planning another it's obvious we haven't hit that ceiling yet. The fact that we have been able to do all that with as you pointed out 4 winning seasons in 11 years shows you how much passion there is for East Carolina in the state of NC, and not that it's just something that would disappear during a downturn in play.

I think you also very much overstate the local competition in the area. State and UNC are certainly factors there is no doubt about that, but the others you mentioned really aren't that big. You did rightfully mention App though, who actually have a much larger football following in the state than both Duke and Wake.

The Panthers don't have the same negative affect on us the way that NFL franchises seem to have on teams in their cities. We are quite a distance away from them, and because of the fact that they really haven't been in existance that long most of the people in the state are fans of the colleges and have converted to Pathers fans. That's probably different than the mentality up in the NE where the NFL teams have been in existance for 70+ years and demand so much more attention year round than the Pathers have ever gotten around here.

I don't disagree with your last paragraph though. As much as we like to joke about Marinara you don't just go around picking teams from every corner of the country unless someone is telling you this is what we want you to do. As I said at the begining of your post though I do appreciate your post and opinion. I have no problem with people wanting to have a well thought out debate on the subject, but some immediately just go to calling ECU fans bitter and butt hurt and then we have a pissing match. I'm happy to see a couple of back to back well reasoned posts on the subject from 2 different perspectives.

(12-12-2011 10:35 PM)TampaKnight Wrote:  tl;dr

(ECU should have been in the Big East Sun Belt yesterday.)

FIFY

(12-13-2011 11:10 AM)TOGC Wrote:  

(12-12-2011 10:35 PM)TampaKnight Wrote:  tl;dr

(ECU should have been in the Big East Sun Belt yesterday.)

FIFY

I'd say the same for Memphis, but would they really want to downgrade their FB strength?

(12-13-2011 11:12 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 11:10 AM)TOGC Wrote:  

(12-12-2011 10:35 PM)TampaKnight Wrote:  tl;dr

(ECU should have been in the Big East Sun Belt yesterday.)

FIFY

I'd say the same for Memphis, but would they really want to downgrade their FB strength?

Downgrade?

(12-13-2011 10:42 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  A number of good points in your post. Just want to correct the facts in your Florida example in which you list attendance ranking with Miami 3rd & USF 4th. Since the decline of Miami football coinciding with its entrance into the ACC & with the emergence of USF football as they have built their program, USF has higher attendance than Miami most of the time in recent years. Here's how their attendance compares over the past 4 years (in the thousands) with the most recent year first:

USF -- 40,8 - 52,5 - 49,6 - 53,1
Miami - 52,5 - 47,5 - 46,2 - 43,5

You have very effectively articulated the pro-ECU argument. As I said , all good points. However, it must be balanced against the other side of the argument. Attendance doesn't make money for anyone else in the conference. Only for the home team. TV contracts make money for everyone. Hence, the market size argument.

Teams that draw TV viewership outside their market do so because there's interest that goes beyond the loyal following. That interest is normally generated by a winning record. ECU has had only 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years, i.e. since the turn of the century. That's a problem for the notion that they will generate interest beyond their fan base. Teams that don't have winning seasons don't go to bowls, so it also undermines the traveling fan base argument. Moreover, ECU isn't close to any other Big East schools, so just how far are they going to travel even to regular season games?

The other problem that ECU has even with their attendance is their ceiling. There's only so high that their popularity can go because they're in a state with a population of 9 million, about the same size as New Jersey. IN NC, they have competition form UNC & NC State, both of whom draw more fans than ECU does. While ECU fans love to disparage Duke & Wake, the fact is that they combine for more fans than ECU draws, so they count for something in the college football landscape. Finally, NC has one of the best I-AA programs in the country & it draws very well for I-AA. Lastly, there's an NFL franchise in the state with its own fan base. None of this is to disparage what ECU has accomplished. Only to point out that it is a market with a lot of competition for the local college football fan.

For all the criticism of the Big East, their expansion plans have been guided by a team of media consultants, not by some group of village idiots as is often claimed here. Undoubtedly these consultants, experts in their field, have looked at all the factors you present & more. They've drawn a different conclusion than you have.

I understand completely. Our program would be good for long term stability; but it is not going to bring immediate TV revenues, which is the determining factor.

With regards to the ceiling...

UNC and NCSU have had every advantage over us imaginable; flagship status, revenues, bcs access, you name it. They've reached a ceiling; not ECU. Their football attendance and fanbase growth has been stagnant for some time now. Ours has been booming in spite of 4 winning seasons in 11 years and our Non AQ status.

UNC and NCSU averaged about 56,000 fans per game this year. We averaged a little over 50,000. Since 2005, we've increased our average attendance 51.25% from 33,066 to 50,012 or approximatley 8.54% per year (straight line). This is 89% of our flagship's attendance. What other non-aq "directional school" can boast 89% of the top two highest attended flagships in their state?

By comparison, UNC has increased their football attendance 8.39% and NCSU has increased theirs 6.35% over the same time period (compared to ECU at 51.25%)

In terms of stadium capacity, ECU ranks 17th in the nation at 100.02% and is planning another expansion. NCSU follows at 30th in the country with 97.75% and UNC at 49th in the country at 88.89% of capacity.

With our next expansion, we could very well overtake them as the highest attended football program in the state. They've shown the ceiling with every possible advantage over us from money to recruiting to bcs aq status.

Again, it doesn't matter and I agree with most everything you've said except for ECU's ceiling. We are the fastest growing campus in the state with a booming medical school and dental school. Our popularity is increasing ten fold over our neighbors. In the not-too-distant future, we will be the most popular football program in the 10th most populated state. UNC and NCSU will be in our rear view mirror regardless of AQ status.

(12-13-2011 10:53 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 08:04 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Those millions would've helped us keep up in the arms race. Make no mistake about it that would've been huge for ECU. We've been doing things the hard way for a long times in terms of money. That's part of the reason TH wants to expand again; More revenue that we can actually control.

Stop with the excuses. Please.

There are a number of programs that have developed themselves to the point that AQ conferences can't say no to them - not in times when the conference is filling a hole created by defections, but in good times. Those schools have developed their programs without the help of AQ revenue but simply by winning games.

Start with Utah. Under Urban Meyer, they developed themselves into one of the best programs in the country. After he left, they continued to win, convincing everyone that they were for real as a program & not just shooting star. The Pac Ten grabbed them as an expansion move, not to fill a hole.

TCU did the same thing. They developed a winning program that sustained itself for well over a decade. The Big East grabbed them as an expansion candidate, not to fill a hole.

Boise State has positioned itself the same way with long term sustained success. First the Mountain West grabbed them as an expansion move & now the Big East.

If ECU were to achieve the same success as any of these 3 have in recent years, they would be grabbed up in a heart beat. However, their progress has been more like Marshall & Fresno State, both of whom soared for a few years but who then faded, crashed, & burned when they fell back to earth.

it's unfortunate that ECU doesn't have the money. This is all about competition. A lot of schools are competing for the same prize. It's a hard road. The challenge is to find a way to win with limited resources. You simply have to do better than 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years to be positioned as an expansion candidate.

Melky, I don't totally disagree with your premise, but let me ask:

1. As a UConn fan, what exactly did UConn football do to make them so irresistible to an AQ conference? USF? I know its not a simple answer - but winning wouldn't factor into it at all.

2. Utah was the flagship university of a state without an AQ school, located in a large city. Would they have been considered if their campus was in Moab, and BYU had already been in the Big XII?

3. Would TCU have been considered if their campus was in San Angelo?

Finally, Boise St.'s journey has been nothing short of amazing, and can't readily be explained. Even the successes of Utah and TCU (or most AQ's for that matter) don't approach it - to expect any other program to simply go out and match it would be absurd. Outside of geography (which is a factor cast aside long ago, it seems) no one here would argue against their inclusion. People also try to make Boise out to be some sort of cowtown, when in fact it's metro area has over half a million people to it and is ranked #86. That doesn't hurt, neither do their highly-coveted BCS points.

Again, I don't buy all of the excuses either. But this attitude of "well, you should've won more and you'd be in" is ludicrous, and one we are all too familiar hearing from our ugly sisters to the west who've won as much or less than we have.

(12-13-2011 10:51 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Melky....Duke and Wake DO NOT combine for more fans than ECU. That's a BIG myth believed by folks that don't or haven't lived in NC. Duke has 2 types of fans. Students / graduates and bandwagon basketball fans. WF's fanbase is almost non-existent, even in NC. ECU's fanbase isn't as far behind NCSU as many of you believe either. That's part of the perception problem being the only non-AQ FBS in the state. Also UNC, NCSU and Duke share the same market. ECU has their own market.

1. I was talking about attendancewhen I said that Duke & Wake combine for more fans than ECU. Here are last year's attendance numbers

ECU - 49,6
Duke - 28,7
Wake - 30.5

The combined attendance of Wake + Duke = 59,2, or almost 10K more than ECU. Again my point was that "they count for something" - not that either is more popular than ECU. My larger point was that therre is a ceiling for ECU because there is a lot of competition for the local sports fan.

2. I never said that ECU was far behind UNC & State. I've obviously checked teh numbers, so I know that all 3 are in the 50's. My point was simply that ECU's attendance is 3rd. This is important when the argument for ECU to take a step up in class is always based on their attendance Again, there is a lot of comptition for the local college football fan in NC, so there is a ceiling on what any one school is going to be able to rise to.

3. You say that ECU has their own market, yet other ECU fans post here all the time that ECU isn't limited to the Greenville area & that they have fans around the entire state. Which is it? If ECU is limited to the eastern/coastal region of the state, tehn we're back to the small market argument that you have to overcome

4. ECU is not the only non-AQ program in the state. That's another part of the problem. ASU had the highest FCS attendance in the country last year, drawing 25,7, & is making noise about moving up. Regardless of whether they move up or not, they still draw a lot of fans. That's more competition for the NC college football fan. You guys are in a tough market.

(12-13-2011 11:19 AM)piratefan1975 Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 10:42 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  A number of good points in your post. Just want to correct the facts in your Florida example in which you list attendance ranking with Miami 3rd & USF 4th. Since the decline of Miami football coinciding with its entrance into the ACC & with the emergence of USF football as they have built their program, USF has higher attendance than Miami most of the time in recent years. Here's how their attendance compares over the past 4 years (in the thousands) with the most recent year first:

USF -- 40,8 - 52,5 - 49,6 - 53,1
Miami - 52,5 - 47,5 - 46,2 - 43,5

You have very effectively articulated the pro-ECU argument. As I said , all good points. However, it must be balanced against the other side of the argument. Attendance doesn't make money for anyone else in the conference. Only for the home team. TV contracts make money for everyone. Hence, the market size argument.

Teams that draw TV viewership outside their market do so because there's interest that goes beyond the loyal following. That interest is normally generated by a winning record. ECU has had only 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years, i.e. since the turn of the century. That's a problem for the notion that they will generate interest beyond their fan base. Teams that don't have winning seasons don't go to bowls, so it also undermines the traveling fan base argument. Moreover, ECU isn't close to any other Big East schools, so just how far are they going to travel even to regular season games?

The other problem that ECU has even with their attendance is their ceiling. There's only so high that their popularity can go because they're in a state with a population of 9 million, about the same size as New Jersey. IN NC, they have competition form UNC & NC State, both of whom draw more fans than ECU does. While ECU fans love to disparage Duke & Wake, the fact is that they combine for more fans than ECU draws, so they count for something in the college football landscape. Finally, NC has one of the best I-AA programs in the country & it draws very well for I-AA. Lastly, there's an NFL franchise in the state with its own fan base. None of this is to disparage what ECU has accomplished. Only to point out that it is a market with a lot of competition for the local college football fan.

For all the criticism of the Big East, their expansion plans have been guided by a team of media consultants, not by some group of village idiots as is often claimed here. Undoubtedly these consultants, experts in their field, have looked at all the factors you present & more. They've drawn a different conclusion than you have.

I understand completely. Our program would be good for long term stability; but it is not going to bring immediate TV revenues, which is the determining factor.

With regards to the ceiling...

UNC and NCSU have had every advantage over us imaginable; flagship status, revenues, bcs access, you name it. They've reached a ceiling; not ECU. Their football attendance and fanbase growth has been stagnant for some time now. Ours has been booming in spite of 4 winning seasons in 11 years and our Non AQ status.

UNC and NCSU averaged about 56,000 fans per game this year. We averaged a little over 50,000. Since 2005, we've increased our average attendance 51.25% from 33,066 to 50,012 or approximatley 8.54% per year (straight line). This is 89% of our flagship's attendance. What other non-aq "directional school" can boast 89% of the top two highest attended flagships in their state?

By comparison, UNC has increased their football attendance 8.39% and NCSU has increased theirs 6.35% over the same time period (compared to ECU at 51.25%)

In terms of stadium capacity, ECU ranks 17th in the nation at 100.02% and is planning another expansion. NCSU follows at 30th in the country with 97.75% and UNC at 49th in the country at 88.89% of capacity.

With our next expansion, we could very well overtake them as the highest attended football program in the state. They've shown the ceiling with every possible advantage over us from money to recruiting to bcs aq status.

Again, it doesn't matter and I agree with most everything you've said except for ECU's ceiling. We are the fastest growing campus in the state with a booming medical school and dental school. Our popularity is increasing ten fold over our neighbors. In the not-too-distant future, we will be the most popular football program in the 10th most populated state. UNC and NCSU will be in our rear view mirror regardless of AQ status.

2011

50012 ECU
56000 UNC
56287 STATE


Consider this

Kenan holds 60,000
Carter Finley holds 58,700
Ficklen holds 50,000

so the two ACC schools that smack dab in the middle of the Research Triangle, surrounded by Durham, Raleigh, Clayton, Knightdale, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, etc and Charlotte 2 hours down the road and are considered the flagship universities for North Carolina, the best markets, playing an ACC schedule aren't filling the seats, while lil 'ol Greenville in rural farmland North Carolina, out in the boonies, with 0 zero 0 market is selling out against the bottom standing teams of CUSA.

(12-13-2011 11:50 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Duke - 28,7

With all due respect, the fact that you would post this (and rely on it) shows that you (like most of the posters here) know nothing about college football in the State of North Carolina.

...but keep on keeping on if it makes you feel better about your opinion.

(12-13-2011 11:56 AM)Capital Pirate Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 11:50 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Duke - 28,7

With all due respect, the fact that you would post this (and rely on it) shows that you (like most of the posters here) know nothing about college football in the State of North Carolina.

...but keep on keeping on if it makes you feel better about your opinion.

In Melky's defense, that is their official number from last year.

About 5,000 Alabama fans bought season tickets to Duke last year to guarantee seats at Wallace-Wade stadium. After all, Duke season tickets cost less than one Alabama home game.

(12-13-2011 11:49 AM)WilsonPirate Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 10:53 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 08:04 AM)NoQuarter08 Wrote:  Those millions would've helped us keep up in the arms race. Make no mistake about it that would've been huge for ECU. We've been doing things the hard way for a long times in terms of money. That's part of the reason TH wants to expand again; More revenue that we can actually control.

Stop with the excuses. Please.

There are a number of programs that have developed themselves to the point that AQ conferences can't say no to them - not in times when the conference is filling a hole created by defections, but in good times. Those schools have developed their programs without the help of AQ revenue but simply by winning games.

Start with Utah. Under Urban Meyer, they developed themselves into one of the best programs in the country. After he left, they continued to win, convincing everyone that they were for real as a program & not just shooting star. The Pac Ten grabbed them as an expansion move, not to fill a hole.

TCU did the same thing. They developed a winning program that sustained itself for well over a decade. The Big East grabbed them as an expansion candidate, not to fill a hole.

Boise State has positioned itself the same way with long term sustained success. First the Mountain West grabbed them as an expansion move & now the Big East.

If ECU were to achieve the same success as any of these 3 have in recent years, they would be grabbed up in a heart beat. However, their progress has been more like Marshall & Fresno State, both of whom soared for a few years but who then faded, crashed, & burned when they fell back to earth.

it's unfortunate that ECU doesn't have the money. This is all about competition. A lot of schools are competing for the same prize. It's a hard road. The challenge is to find a way to win with limited resources. You simply have to do better than 4 winning seasons in the past 11 years to be positioned as an expansion candidate.

Melky, I don't totally disagree with your premise, but let me ask:

1. As a UConn fan, what exactly did UConn football do to make them so irresistible to an AQ conference? USF? I know its not a simple answer - but winning wouldn't factor into it at all.

2. Utah was the flagship university of a state without an AQ school, located in a large city. Would they have been considered if their campus was in Moab, and BYU had already been in the Big XII?

3. Would TCU have been considered if their campus was in San Angelo?

Finally, Boise St.'s journey has been nothing short of amazing, and can't readily be explained. Even the successes of Utah and TCU (or most AQ's for that matter) don't approach it - to expect any other program to simply go out and match it would be absurd. Outside of geography (which is a factor cast aside long ago, it seems) no one here would argue against their inclusion. People also try to make Boise out to be some sort of cowtown, when in fact it's metro area has over half a million people to it and is ranked #86. That doesn't hurt, neither do their highly-coveted BCS points.

Again, I don't buy all of the excuses either. But this attitude of "well, you should've won more and you'd be in" is ludicrous, and one we are all too familiar hearing from our ugly sisters to the west who've won as much or less than we have.

I'm not really trying to argue this one way or the other. I'm just trying to point out what it takes to position yourself for a move up. So many ECU fans post here & say that we're a no brainer, the Big East should take us. But they ignore the other side of the situation.

The reality is that if a team wants to position itself for a move up, they have to do certain things to make themselves attractive. Utah, TCU, & Boise have done that by winning a lot of games. ECU's down cycle earlier this decade was a case of very bad timing.

The success of Boise is actually very easy to understand. California is a state of 37 million people, 50% larger than the next largest state in the country & about double the size of each of the next two largest states. Yet, they have only 4 FBS schools. They are absurdly underrepresented in FBS. That leaves a lot of California high school athletes who went to play at a high level left over. Boise has built its teams almost entirely on recruiting California athletes overlooked by the Pac-12. If California had a normal number of FBS schools & Boise had to rely on recruiting Idaho & the surrounding area, they'd have no shot. They are fortunately positioned & have taken advantage of an opportunity.

Your arguments about UConn & USF are irelevant. There are reasons why each of those schools are in Big East Football. It may not be fair, but it is what it is. Different schools bring different advantages to a conference looking for new members. ECU's problem is that it can't make the market argument & it isn't close to anyone else in the Big East. So, its argument has to be based on attendance - as ECU fans do - but that must be combined with winning so that the enthusiasm will spread beyond eastern NC. Without a record of winning consistently in the past decade or so, the appeal to an expanding is greatly diminished.

Timing in life is everything. If conferences had been looking to expnad in the 1990's on the scale that they are now, ECU would have been better positioned than they are now. Unfortunately they did not sustain that winning record into this century & that has hurt their case badly.

Holy hell, it's the ECU Manifesto!

(12-13-2011 11:50 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  My larger point was that therre is a ceiling for ECU because there is a lot of competition for the local sports fan.

Not as much as you'd think. Like I said Duke and WF have marginal fanbases, believe it or not. Duke fans only appear during basketball season and Wake is almost non-existent. Nobody cares about App St. Nobody cares about the Carolina Hurricanes other than Yankee transplants. There's more transplants in the Raleigh-Durham area now than there are natives so many of them don't even have a dog in the fight. To be honest I don't even care about the Carolina Panthers but I'm probably in the minority there.

ECU has the Greenville market for sure but a lot of fans live in Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte and Tidewater, VA. I agree that we can't claim those markets as our own but plenty of folks are watching ECU in those areas. Greenville is a college town so by nature most of our alumns and fans can't live there. It is one of the fastest growing cities in NC though.

I totally understand your points and I don't expect you to fully comprehend ECU's football and baseball culture. To be honest ECU is kind of a freak of nature. Conventional wisdom tells you we shouldn't be doing what we've been doing over the years.

(12-13-2011 11:56 AM)Capital Pirate Wrote:  

(12-13-2011 11:50 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  Duke - 28,7

With all due respect, the fact that you would post this (and rely on it) shows that you (like most of the posters here) know nothing about college football in the State of North Carolina.

...but keep on keeping on if it makes you feel better about your opinion.

ACC football attendance down

The article really says it all.

But a few key points...........

1. Duke football attendance is atrocious being a BCS team.
2. VA Tech leads the way in attendance and comes from a Blacksburg market that is smaller than Greenville
3. ACC attendance has gone down, while ECU's attendance has to continued to go up.

NC is 9 million and growing.
East Carolina has most, if not all of I-95 east which is around 2.5 million.

There's no doubt that with the right resources, existing fanbase, facility upgrades, and continued growth, ECU could be the next VA Tech.

Just hopin somewhere down the road, the SEC sees what most ECU fans already know.

(12-13-2011 12:04 PM)Chappy Wrote:  In Melky's defense, that is their official number from last year.

About 5,000 Alabama fans bought season tickets to Duke last year to guarantee seats at Wallace-Wade stadium. After all, Duke season tickets cost less than one Alabama home game.

I realize that is the "official number", but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Wallace-Wade is generally less than half-full for EVERY game Duke plays unless the other team fills the seats.....

...and that was the purpose of my post. Anyone hanging their argument on Duke putting almost 30k DUKE fans in their stadium knows little about college football in NC.....