So we have a state full of people who have never seen the inside of a college lecture hall rolling tiding each other?
Roll Tide to that.
Not sure that’s very different from 90% of UMich fans. And that is not meant critically.
It was a joke, I thought of it whilst I was trying to find the Grey Poupon in my fridge. I must be out.
And I was going to mention that too, the famed Walmart Wolverine.
Yeah but numbers way off
About half of UM fans did not attend UM, probably similar to every other top 30ish athletic department
Gonzaga has a total enrollment of ~ 7500 and they routinely sell out their 6000 seat arena for Mens AND women’t basketball. Gonzaga men’s basketball has a viewership of ~ 2.5M people
Aside from them being an awesome program, I think a couple things go into that. For one a dearth of high end basketball being played in that region with only the Blazers who have reliably sucked and outside of la few Seahawks runs no championship caliber athletic options of any sort for what, 700 miles?
Secondly I wonder if the Jesuit component compels a rooting interest nationally from a faith angle.
Thirdly amongst former PAC 10-12 fan bases there was a little bit of the Duke watch them bc you despise them element. Not to that extent, but as an Arizona fan I know that us and UCLA in particular felt that in certain years they had a major seeding advantage if they could bang out their challenging non-conference schedule and that the incentive structure there was different bc major conference teams were utilizing the non-con to prepare for their conference schedules to at least some extent. I don’t know that this element really persists post-realignment though. I know with Zona it’s now how the heck are we going to get through the Big 12 gauntlet.
I’m not being critical of the idea
Just pointing out that having an outsized number of fans for an elite program isn’t unusual and Gonzaga popped into my head as an extreme example
Notre Dame is another. Every Catholic in the known universe is at least sympathetic
I didn’t think you were being critical. I just think Gonzaga has some additional nuance to it. Less faith influence than Notre Dame but it still perhaps plays a factor. I used to dislike Gonzaga but now that they gave us Tommy I’m fine with them. Mark Few was also raised ten miles from where I live. And aside from one horrible drinking and driving incident Mark other has a reputation for being a man of character and kindness.
Weird. My number came from a similar search
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