I'm just laying this out
"Oh NO! ANOTHER FBS THREAD NOOOOOOOlolololollololollolozzzz0000rz!!!!!1111222 3", you say.
Well, I'm just throwing this out here as to why it's foolish to think NDSU can NEVER go FBS.
The following link http://easterneagles.wordpress.com/2...ance-for-2010/ shows the ACTUAL "AIS" (asses in seats) attendances for Eastern Michigan home football games in 2010.
ACTUAL attendances:
Army - 8,757
Central Michigan - 8,043
Ohio - 6,799
Toledo - 7,001
Northern Illinois - 1,404 (YES, That's ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED FUCKING FOUR - NDSU basketball vs. Mayville State drew more than that)
Average: 6,401 (actual butts in seats)
This is almost as bad as UND does. (Assuming here that UND gets maybe 6,000 actual asses in seats on average for its games)
Now, that is not to say that we want to have a program that's anything like Eastern Michigan's. Far from it. I would NEVER want to have a program like EMU's is now. We would pound the hell out of EMU if we played right now. My point is that There's a lot more of Eastern Michigan-like schools at the bottom of the FBS that we already hold advantages over in terms of current and potential fan base, facilties, football operations, budget, etc. than you think.
I make these posts not because I am dying for us to move up NOW. I do it because I am anticipating that the Fargo-Moorhead metro will in the near future reach 300,000 people (the minimum market size believed necessary to support a competative FBS program). Boise State literally moved up to FBS almost right after the Boise metro reached 300,000. F-M in 2011 is incredibly similar to Boise in 1991. Look at a metro map of Boise in 1991 and F-M now, there are so much similarities in the rate of development. I think that an FBS move will happen sometime at the latest in the early part of next decade. With schools like App State, Montana, even Sam Houston State flirting with FBS, NDSU doesn't want to be left behind.
OK, standard FBS rant over. But back to EMU. Even with a winning program, they would still struggle to get the amount of fans we have now coming to our games. They are under the dark shadow of Big Blue, and they will never be able to escape it. EMU spent just a tad over 5 million dollars on football in 09-10, while NDSU spent about 3.4 million. The difference in those two budgets are LITERALLY the difference in 1) The payouts from games with two big BCS schools that they would give to a MAC team vs. an FCS team, and 2) The increased payout in TV revenue to MAC schools. Everything else being equal (not counting the following two factors), their budget is the same as ours.
Again, we do not want to be like EMU. But think about it: If I could find them, I could show you at least 20 attendance lists for bottom FBS schools that are similar to EMU's. To think NDSU would dwell in the FBS cellar if such a move took place is ludicrous. We'd AUTOMATICALLY be outside of the bottom 30 in fan support. And talent wise, we'd be capable of being anywhere from #60-80 out of 120+ teams in almost every year.
Yeah, yeah, another FBS thread. But seriously, look at those EMU stats, and then tell yourself again that we have no business even discussing FBS.
Oh, and one more thing:
Armed Forces Bowl > FCS National Championship. That's not my opinion, that's the opinion of the football watching public.
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Originally Posted by TheBisonator
