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Originally Posted by cuervo72
Honest question about fandom; say Rutgers gets good in oh, 2020. Will alumni from thirty years earlier much care, or does enthusiasm for a program start with the students who were there when a sport was big? In other words, if football wasn't a thing when you were in school, will you much care if it becomes a big thing? Are bandwagon fans as big as they can be in the pros (where it is largely a geographical)? Or are we just thinking of the NY/NJ area getting into it rather than just alumni?
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Even if Rutgers turned into a dynasty, NY/NJ will always be a pro sports town. You would need to overcome literal generations of people being interested, but not obsessed, with college football in order to become the big thing. That being said, the benefit of the area is that even having a portion of such a large area being fans results in being a pretty big fanbase compared to a lot of areas.
The B1G affiliation helps a lot there. If we didn't get in, stayed in the AAC and made some kind of ridiculous run as a G5 school to the playoff, I don't think that would go as far in sustaining and building a large fanbase. Every Rutgers fan in the NYC area knows plenty of Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin fans and playing these schools so often will help build up college football here. Again, please note I said "help"...I'm talking incremental in the grand scheme of things.
As for the timing, there's definitely a dedicated core group of fans who are dying for success going back to the 70s. If we popped now, it would be a pretty big thing. Just not "Giants Super Bowl run" like.
FWIW, I think Bishop meant more of a giant based on the fertile recruiting ground than a giant fanbase waiting to explode, akin to an SEC territory, but obviously that goes partially hand in hand.