[NU Sports] Merger: Big East & BIg 12

[Mike Nolan]

> Increased travel harms the student athletes and destroying traditional rivalries will lesson ticket sales.  Will we come to the point where far fewer people attend the games and just the sports nuts watch them on TV?  Maybe the athletes themselves will no longer be true students.  Then college FB would just a bigger NFL.

The travel for 6 road games a year in football (bigger schools often have 
just 5 road games because they want 7 home games) aren't a major factor, 
northern college baseball teams often spend half the winter semester
playing in warmer weather and college basketball teams play a lot more road 
games, more of them mid-week, too.

Northwestern will sell far more tickets for the Nebraska game in Evanston than
for geographically close schools like Illinois, Indiana and Purdue.  

But when is the last time (if ever) that NU had anything close to a sellout
where half or more of the crowd wasn't from the visiting school?  
--
Mike Nolan