Nothing ground breaking here, I just find it interesting that VT has essentially the same size under-graduate student body (according to Wikipedia) as LSU - the same LSU that hired Jeff Grimes for double the money and also has a $100 million athletic budget.
VT - 23,976; LSU - 24,641 **VT reportedly has more graduate students
VT also averages much higher starting and mid-career salaries for graduates than LSU according to this:
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools
I'm not sure about the size of the alumni base, but it must be at least comparable. If you look at the numbers, VT is comparable in size to any of the schools in the SEC not named aTm, UF, or Vandy. And the graduates have just as much (if not more) earning potential.
Point is, outside of things VT can't really control like the ACC media rights payout, it doesn't seem like finaces and/or fund raising should be a problem for VT. So for me it seems the difference is culture and priorities. How would you describe the culture of the institution? What are the priorities of the school's leadership? What are the priorities of the alumni? How are they different from other schools?
Comments
simply - LSU is in the SEC.
LSU has a longer history of being a 'football school' or athletically oriented . If you asked this same question 20 years ago- they would be no comparison between the two. the culture is definitely different in the SEC. Some folk literally live for SEC football, travelling with the team during the season. LSU is like this. VT is not at that level. The potential is there however, a higher earning potential would likely indicate different priorities and values on the whole.
It's not the alumni base that gets us, it's the non-alumni base. Schools like LSU, Ohio State, Alabama etc all have HUGE portions of their fanbase that have never graced a classroom with their presence. While I'm sure we have a solid non-alumni fanbase it doesn't compare in size to some of these other programs.
We've been regionally and/or nationally relevant for probably 20-25 years, LSU has been so for much longer.
Good point...I can guarantee you that 75% of the state of Alabama supports them...but probably 1% or less actually went to Alabama.
Even in the professional work force in Huntsville that ratio still seems correct. The majority of Alabama fans I work with didn't go to that school. The ones that did are actually quite down to earth. When it comes to Alabama Fans, show me a woman kicking some opposing fan in the head wearing bear bryant houndstooth plaid apparel, and I'll show you someone who did not attend college at UA at T.
In response to your point, id say its still an alumni base issue then.
Many of those who are casual fans had parents or grandparents or other relatives or even neighbors maybe that attended those schools. That means its a decades long thing and slowly builds over generations. Think about it this way Vt is only 50 years removed from being an almost all male military school, and 25/30 years removed from being a small relatively regional technical school.
Another generation of VT prominence, even without winning it all, will do much to build up the casual fan base that is more sustainable then a following gathered because of temporary success.
Exactly. LSU has the entire state in its grasp for CFB attention. In fact, they have a 5-6 hour radius all to themselves for d1 sports. Bama and aTm are the closest. Tulane doesn't count. The vast majority of fans did not go there, but the culture of the area to people immigrate to the area is" Love LSU, or forever be an outsider." Because the vast majority of people from there never leave, the school is an extension on their state-cultural-pride. It's quite borg-ish.
By comparison, we share fans (revenue) with several other reputable/popular (even la ball cop U) universities IN THE SAME STATE who have good/great sports programs. Not to mention the number of other big schools outside the state that are within a 5-6 hour radius: UNC, Duke, NCState, MD, Clemson, UT, Wake, WVU...
That's a lot of revenue dispersed over many schools, even considering the increased popultions in our area.
I say all that mainly out of jealousy. I mean, it's quite amazing how passionate they are. My wife and i always jokes that of we wanted to start an instantly successful business in BTR, we would just: a) put "Tiger" in the name, b) make the business colors purple and gold, and/or c) sell LSU paraphernalia inside regardless of our business purpose.
i would be careful about the business colors.
http://www.lawupdates.com/commentary/ilsu_v_smack_apparel_i_trademark_pr...
Not sure it would apply in this situation but I thought it was interesting.
I have several friends who are L$U fans/alumni, and their level of devotion to the team is through the roof. Several of them are older and have been this way all their lives. L$U enjoys a monopoly on in-state fan support, unlike VT, and they also garner a lot of fans from Mississippi since both of their teams are SEC roadkill historically. Do not underestimate the power of having the only team in your home state that produces a lot of D1 athletes, as well as a 50+ year history of being relevant on a national scale. VT has been relevant nationally since 1999, and our fan base is very passionate, but we have nowhere near the numbers or the history of dedicated fan support to D1 football that L$U enjoys. We can get there, but it is going to take many more years of success on the gridiron for VT to generate the large and committed fanbase willing to fund VT athletics like $EC schools such as L$U, Bama, Auburn, UT, UGA and UF have to support them.
Step one is to make LOLuva irrelevant by never losing to them again, thus locking up the in-state D1 talent that wants to play near home, just as L$U and Tennessee have done for the most part.
I agree. I have friend who gives crazy money to Notre Dame...he never went to school there. Crazy thing is that his brother actually played at VT. He always tells me VT is not at SEC or ND, Texas, OHio St level...and in regards to non-alum giving, he is probably right.
Just realized I went ND when the thread was SEC....my apologies
To add to this, there are hardly any NFL teams down in the south, so the only thing these people care about is college football.
Another very good point. The NFL fan bases down south are nothing compared to the Steelers/Packers/Bears/Seahawks/Ravens etc.
The Saints have a pretty rabid following nowadays too. Nowhere near the level of Pittsburgh yet, but then again only a select few cities have a whole street dedicated to one professional sports team's memorabilia sales.
Uh how about Fins/Ain'ts/Jags/Bucs/Tans/Falcs/Panthers/Boys/Texans. In fact, you could (theoretically) argue that Skins/Raves are souther because they are below the Mason-Dixon.
You listed 11/32 teams. Most of them are relatively new. Half of them are located in one of 2 states (Fla, Tx). I think it's still a valid argument that most of the residents in the Southeast have nothing but college football in their lives. Culture is definitely part of it too though; People in the deep south LOVE their football more than anything and that just isn't the case in most of the rest of the country.
Still counts.
my point is that LSU, Bama, Tennessee, and Georgia have been around longer than the falcons, bucs, titans, and jaguars...there is more long standing tradition in CFB in the south. That isn't the case in other parts of the country. Look at New England. Nobody has ever cared about BC or any of the ivy league football teams. They never will. The Patriots will trump any college team anywhere near by. Fans in NYC and Buffalo care more about the Jets and Bills than they ever will about any local college team. Even though both of those teams suck right now, they still have more fans than the Bulls or the Rams (college teams from Buffalo and the Bronx respectively..if you need to look them up). People in the south drink, breath and live football. They have done for a long long time. They hand down their fandom through generations upon generations and since the college teams have been around longer, they're more important to the locals. That will never change.
Still counts. What about the Oilers?
Nobody outside Houston holds any allegiance to the Oilers.
Compare the Oilers to Green Bay or the Pats or da Bearss.
You get nothing there.
What do you mean "These people"? Haha, Just busting your chops. I was born, grew up, and have worked in the south my entire life except a few years that I was stationed in CO. People down here (AL) kill me when they say VA isn't the south. I guess they forgot where the capital of the confederacy was during the war of northern aggression.
As a long time Richmond resident, I can confirm that we are still a Southern city...barely. Can't spit without hitting a transplanted yankee down here, but we are doing our best to teach them how to say "y'all" and eat BBQ and drink sweet tea with all meals. Looking forward to retiring somewhere south of Charlotte one day.
The south starts at about Fredericksburg and about 20 miles west of Norfolk, VA. North of Fredericksburg has turned into New York via D.C. Virginia Beach and Norfolk have too many transplants to be The South with some exceptions.
Parts of Richmond suburbs are a little too much like D.C. To be Richmond-like any longer but downtown and anywhere on the water definitely are. The old neighborhoods definitely still South.
One of NASCAR s best tracks is there. It must be the south.
Any place that has high end apartments and condos made from old tobacco warehouses with elevated freight railroad tracks running past is definitely The South.
My Native Henrico County has really seemed to change over the last decade.
Speaking of great bbq, Buz & Ned's is always thrown out there, but I highly recommend The Hogshead Cafe. You won't regret it, if you can get a table that is.
As a recent Henrico resident and lover of buz & neds, I will seriously look into your recommendation
I played highschool football in SW VA. Growing up, we were dominant in football...absolutely, would not lose. Then, as I progressed through the grades, a strange thing started happening. My teammates starting playing other sports- to the point that they dropped football! How could they. The result: a once dominant class quickly became forgettable...2-8 senior year...with a graduating class of 400, only 6 senior football players. Ouch. My point? In many of the southern states, OK and TX included, they eat, breath, and sleep football. There is none of this "baseball in the spring, swim in the summer", stuff. It's two-a-days in July, pass skeleton in August, balls out till November...then start lifting till July. The culture of VA doesn't have decades of this mentality breathed into it. For us, there are many other interests to occupy our time and energy. For our brethren down south, you either play starting tailback, or you're on the ready when your # 's called. I agree with the above on many fronts: sustained success over generations will help alleviate us on a cultural basis, as well as financially. We won't quite reach this level of commitment until we're willing to drink the "12 months of football Kool-aid".
That might have been your experience... but there are other Virginia schools that do 12-month football workouts.
I know the high school football following is pretty big in the 757, since there were no 1-A or professional teams in the area until ODU recently. We may not have the money for the big stadiums like Texas does, but while I was in high school we'd routinely sell 12k tickets for our 8k seat stadium for the big cross-town rivalry (Hampton-Phoebus), and it was only that low because the fire marshals turned people away once people were lining the fences around the field 3+ deep.
Never been to any Beach District games, but I know their news coverage and forum representation was always even greater than the Peninsula District.