Interesting Graphic On GT and College Fanbases

[Augusta_Jacket]

I'm talking about the effect of three in a row over Georgia. If and when that happens again, you'll see a marked change in the gold/red mix at Bobby Dodd.

That's a big if. The issue is we are talking about symptoms. Both winning games and attendance are symptoms. Until we fix the root cause of our ills, we are likely to never see the symptoms do anything but get mildly better for periods of time.

 

[bigrabbit]

There is mention about how Stanford and UVA being academically unreachable to the general community impacts fan adoption of their sports programs. I think that is a factor for GT, although I know some will disagree. After your kids and most of your friends’ kids get turned down by a school, and your h.s.guidance counselors (accurately) advise it’s best-case a stretch school, how likely are you to adopt the sports programs? Of course winning is most important, but I think academic elitism is a strong 2nd order effect.

 

[forensicbuzz]

There is mention about how Stanford and UVA being academically unreachable to the general community impacts fan adoption of their sports programs. I think that is a factor for GT, although I know some will disagree. After your kids and most of your friends’ kids get turned down by a school, and your h.s.guidance counselors (accurately) advise it’s best-case a stretch school, how likely are you to adopt the sports programs? Of course winning is most important, but I think academic elitism is a strong 2nd order effect.

My dad grew up in Mountain View. He's a huge Stanford Cardinal fan. He went to San Jose City College and then Sacramento State, where he was a cross-country and track star (trained for 1964 Olympics). He always said he didn't have the smarts for Stanford, but he supported them because they did it right. Stanford, I believe, has more Director's Cups (for the best Athletic program overall) than any other university. Everyone roots for a winner.

 

[Randy Carson]

I would love to see a chart of our fanbase size over the years

I don't have the exact data, but it looks a bit like this:

 

[yeti92]

There is mention about how Stanford and UVA being academically unreachable to the general community impacts fan adoption of their sports programs. I think that is a factor for GT, although I know some will disagree. After your kids and most of your friends’ kids get turned down by a school, and your h.s.guidance counselors (accurately) advise it’s best-case a stretch school, how likely are you to adopt the sports programs? Of course winning is most important, but I think academic elitism is a strong 2nd order effect.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting neutral people's kids are getting turned down, say at ugag, and the parents are going "F it, I'm gonna be a ugag fan anyway"?

 

[bobongo]

I would love to see a chart of our fanbase size over the years

Don't know about the rest of the fanbase but I know I've grown larger over the years, horizontally speaking.

 

[bigrabbit]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting neutral people's kids are getting turned down, say at ugag, and the parents are going "F it, I'm gonna be a ugag fan anyway"?

No. The researchers were saying that part of the school affinity and fan adoption stems from having close family/friends who you can reasonably imagine going to the school - it’s part of the connection. Once a school becomes so selective that you start to give up on it as practically irrelevant to you or folks you’re closest to, you follow a different school.
VPI is more accessible than UVA, just about anywhere is more accessible than Stanford (and yes Stanford is exemplary at non revenue sports, but few people follow those).
Of course having a fantastic winning team pushes through anything, but the researchers say selectivity is a headwind that imo also applies to some extent for GT.
I don’t think uga has to worry yet - not a complete joke anymore, big bunch of my kid’s friends are at uga, all plenty smart, but none of them got into GT (one is in honors college at uga).