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Originally Posted by Swaggs
Rutgers and Temple would get televised in Philadelphia. West Virginia already has a deal with Fox/Root Sports Pittsburgh. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are enough of Pennsylvania. PA is the 6th most populated state and New Jersey (forget about New York) is the 11th most populated state.
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Bah, Rutgers and Temple are televised now in Philadelphia. There wouldn't be much difference or interest if they got in the same conference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by molson
I still don't get it, I still think college football, at the big time level, is really a national game now, but as long as these discussions are driven by market, it's something conferences will be watching.
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I think you overestimate Northeasteastern population's interest in college football, at least in Pennsylvania. I've spent my whole life in Pennsylvania, growing up in Northeast (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) and spending some time in the Lehigh Valley and now live in suburban Philadelphia. In Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the ONLY interest in college football was Penn State or Notre Dame. On that note high school football moved the meter much more than either of those two teams. Neither Temple nor Rutgers was ever mentioned in local media. The only time Syracuse got mentioned was during the Gerry McNamara days because he was from Scranton.
Even now, I live on the Main Line (think Villanova) and would bet that there is more local interest in high school lacrosse and soccer games than Temple or Rutgers football games. I doubt it's a suburban thing either, as I've never seen Center City fired up about anything college related.
It may be different in Pittsburgh, but I doubt that seeing Pittsburgh's attendance over the past thirty or so years. In short, there's nothing which would make believe that the Northeast is a viable ground for college football sport; most cities up here are too local sports or pro sports centric.