[NU Sports] Sugar Bowl ...

[cherron604 at aol.com]

We all seem to operate (fans and the press) on the assumption that 'Notre Dame guarantees ratings and gate'.  We have certainly all heard it often enough (they have their own network, after all).  But hard, fast numbers are hard to find.  I did find this interesting story from the Wall Street Journal (via the Austin American-Statesman):
 
http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/longhorns/01/4bowlratings.html 
 
It is intriguing that the South Bend school does no better than 7th, helping a game's average ratings by only about 3%.  This is a nice number, but I would guess almost certainly less than the school would have done 20 years ago.
 
And the gate argument might be losing a little steam also - the Sugar Bowl would certainly have sold as many tickets (due to LSU's presence) even if a different, quality opponent had been provided to the Tigers.
 
I have not seen research on which schools' 'travelling fans' spread around the most dollars in the host cities, and I would tend to doubt the rosy numbers most cities put out ('adding this will pump $500 million into the local economy'), but that would be interesting also.
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: tbng at comcast.net
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 6:56 AM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Sugar Bowl ...


Steve: 
> Instead of Fox constantly hyping the Notre Dame 
> "experience" and giving the Doh!mers a 30 minute 
> commercial during the last half of the rout, it'd have 
> been nice to see them raise the biggest question of 
> the night. Isn't it time the BCS drops their preferential 
> treatment of Notre Dame and makes the Irish earn their 
> big to their (now-annual) bowl (loss) like every other 
> team? 
 
Harry: 
> Money talks. 
 
Steve and Harry are both right. However, why must the press continue to glut themselves at the Irish trough? The third estate is supposed to be unbiased. (Yeah! Right!) 
 
New York City professional sports and Notre Dame football have much in common. The Philadelphia Eagles have soared back from the dead to win their division; meanwhile the Giants have been digging their own grave. Yet all you heard hour after hour last week on ESPN and the NFL Network were stories about the Giants. GO EAGLES! 
 
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