Originally Posted by Bona Wolf for Pope

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Edit: Obviously using just the city limits numbers doesn't give the total picture.

Originally Posted by rusty X

I am having a hard time believing that the Charlotte AD is happy to be thrown into that collection of mutts that now comprise CUSA. With the exception of Tulsa and Rice, I think the rest of those schools have open admissions, or whatever the politically correct term is.

I am sure that the Tulsa and Rice ADs are spending every waking hour trying to figure out how to get their schools out of there. Twenty years ago Rice was in a conference with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, SMU, TCU, Houston, Baylor. Now they look at North Texas, FIU, FAU, La. Tech, UT-San Antonio, UTEP. How would you like to be the guy trying to sell football season tickets at Rice? Buy a six pack of Pepsi, get a free football ticket.

Originally Posted by Palestra1

It's almost comical how closely the ACC is following the BE playbook right down to inviting ND to place their olympic sports in the conference and participate in their bowl rotation. The ACC at this point is not all that different than the BE circa 1999 including having SU, BC, VT, Pitt, and Miami as members. Their big vulnerability in this realingment madness (as was the BE's) is that none of their members have the same national appeal and status as Texas, Michigan or USC or the other giants of college football. They don't have one football member which is so popular nationally that it can carry the conference by drawing huge audiences even in down periods. The ACC's status as a power conference would be secured if ND would join as a full football member, but ND isn't going to do that until absolutely compelled to by forces greater than pleading from their fellow ACC members (just as was the case with the BE). The ACC may manage to avoid being picked apart or they could end up morphing into something like what was mentioned a few posts ago, who knows at this point. Regardless, the ACC is the old BE+ and the BE is the old CUSA+ at least for the time being.

Originally Posted by UMass87

understatement of the year.

Omaha doesn't come close to St. Louis, Pittsburg, or cincinnati and even Buffalo is far more densely populated. Omaha's area is more than twice that of any of the above and its metro population is less than half of all but Buffalo. Omaha is only 'big city' if you are living on a farm - which is most of the people nin Nebraska who don't live in Omaha.

Originally Posted by Bona Wolf for Pope

Omaha: 408,000
St. Louis: 318,000
Pittsburgh: 305,000
Cincinnati: 297,000
Buffalo: 261,000
Richmond 205,000
Dayton 142,000
.
.
.
Olean 15,000

Edit: Obviously using just the city limits numbers doesn't give the total picture.

Originally Posted by UMass87

Omaha is only 'big city' if you are living on a farm - which is most of the people nin Nebraska who don't live in Omaha.

Originally Posted by xudash

Cincinnati's MSA, which is more relevant than city-limit population, but not as relevant as Nielsen's market definition, stands at approx. 2.2 million. Pittsburgh is around 2.4 million. I have no idea on the others, but I would guess dayton in the 300k+ range.

Originally Posted by duq81

The decline of Miami is killing the ACC. Miami doesn't have the long tradition of a Michigan or USC, but from the early 80's, until maybe 6-7 years ago, Miami's national profile, and poularity, was the equal of any school in America, save maybe ND. Florida St. hasn't done the league any favors either. If both schools were still playing at the level they did in the 80's and 90's, no one would be looking to leave the ACC.

Originally Posted by DoubleJayAlum

I'm sorry, but this is about as uninformed as one can get. That is an east coast stereotype...and an incorrect one at that....

The Omaha metro area is right about 1 million people. Certainly not the size of east coast cities, but pretty good sized for the midwest. The Omaha TV market is ranked lower than it probably should be because Nielsen has Omaha and Lincoln as two separate markets, despite the fact it only takes about 35-40 minutes to get to Lincoln from Omaha (shorter than the average commute time in bigger cities).

Originally Posted by bprichard

Dayton and Omaha have about the same sized MSA, around 850K. Omaha has a much larger area, but most of it is really rural and unpopulated. If you throw in Springfield and Greenville, which were recently part of the Dayton MSA, Dayton is up over a million.

Originally Posted by UMass87

Seriously dude, you need to get out and see the world. There is nothing that makes Omaha a "big city" except for the overall rural nature of Nebraska. Consider, for a moment, that metro Omaha contains nearly fifty percent of the population of Nebraska but less than a fortieth of the area. That's why you think it's a big city. But it's not. It's big area wise - 130 square miles. Compare that to say, Boston, which has about 600k people in 50 square miles. In fact, if you took 130 square miles around Boston then you'd get about 4 million people. Boston is not a particularly big "big city". Hell, the little town in MA where I grew up is 50% more densely populated than Omaha.

Originally Posted by PM Thor

Are we really discussing the population comparison of dayton and Omaha?

Originally Posted by PM Thor

Wow, sometimes threads take some weird turns.