Sun Belt kicks out Idaho & New Mexico State
- Thread starter MU ATO
- Start date
I know I'm impressed by people shooting .22, with a harness that keeps them from moving in the slightest way, and head gear that helps with sighting in. So damn impressive.
You just had to mention the Truman, that ship has kept me busy this past week! I've coordinated a handful of patient movements that didn't go quite the way they were supposed to go.
Almost, but at least it's an Olympic sport. You wouldn't put down an American Olympic gold medalist just because it's not a "real" sport in your humble opinion? That sounds as bad as those people upstate that make fun of Marshall's IAA football championships.
There are a lot of "sports" in the Olympics that have no business being part of the games. Rhythmic gymnastics, anyone?
I tend to look at TV DMAs and federal SMSAs more than just a "city". Different states define a "city" differently and then you have things like suburbs in other states and so on. Just for one example, Columbus is the largest "city" in Ohio, but, anybody with any sense knows that Cleveland is a much larger metro area. It is more than just counting people who live in a city limit. Another example is Louisville. After law changes in KY, it is the "30th largest city", but it is only TV DMA #49, about 135% the size of our own. (And chock full of Big Blue fans, of course.)
The point, of course, and we agree, is that the "AAC Lie" that you just look at some city and decide that because a school is IN a city it is SIGNIFICANT IN a city; or that it has X thousand students means those students care. Now we have moved on to a new modification of that lie, where college that, one, no one locally cares about, and, two, have students who have self-selected that school because sports are not important to them have "potential" based just on city size and student size.
On Louisville - The "balance" population used by the Census places them at 30th (612K). If you use the "actual" population caused by the city-county merger - not a state law change - then Louisville is at 18th (760K). By MSA, Louisville is 43 (1.2M) and Huntington is 144 (366K). By CSA, Louisville is at 35 (1.5M) and Huntington is at 67 (703K).
Looking at these numbers makes it clear that the media markets - DMAs - are interesting, since Louisville is listed at 49 (653K, 86% real population, 58% of MSA, 44% of CSA) compared to Huntington at 67 (434K, 886% population, 119% of MSA, 62% of CSA). Looking at a map, you can see that Huntington's DMA combines the Huntington and Charleston areas, and is geographically twice as large as Louisville's.
If you were to combine Louisville and Lexington's DMAs (similar distance between them compared to Huntington/Charleston, would create similar geographic size), you'll find a combined DMA of 1.156M (152% of real population, 104% of MSA, 96% of MSA, 77% of CSA), slightly larger than Pittsburgh, ranked 23. and much closer to a real estimate of Louisville's true market area.
This is why going by DMAs is ridiculous. They're only determined by where local stations are broadcast to. Louisville's DMA is shrunk significantly because of the proximity of Cincinnati (100 miles), and Lexington (78 miles), and even Indianapolis (115 miles) - if a county receives stations from more than one city, it will be included in whichever city's DMA it watches TV from more.
On a final note, although the entire state of KY bleeds blue, just about everyone I've met who keeps up with sports (after growing up there) follows Louisville to a degree, and likes them in all but one game a year. Even here in Ashland, right in the middle of Huntington's market area and three hours from Louisville, UL is just as well known and followed as MU.
tl;dr - Louisville is a more major city than SamC wants you to think, and DMAs are not accurate market representation outside of the local news.
Looking at these numbers makes it clear that the media markets - DMAs - are interesting, since Louisville is listed at 49 (653K, 86% real population, 58% of MSA, 44% of CSA) compared to Huntington at 67 (434K, 886% population, 119% of MSA, 62% of CSA). Looking at a map, you can see that Huntington's DMA combines the Huntington and Charleston areas, and is geographically twice as large as Louisville's.
If you were to combine Louisville and Lexington's DMAs (similar distance between them compared to Huntington/Charleston, would create similar geographic size), you'll find a combined DMA of 1.156M (152% of real population, 104% of MSA, 96% of MSA, 77% of CSA), slightly larger than Pittsburgh, ranked 23. and much closer to a real estimate of Louisville's true market area.
This is why going by DMAs is ridiculous. They're only determined by where local stations are broadcast to. Louisville's DMA is shrunk significantly because of the proximity of Cincinnati (100 miles), and Lexington (78 miles), and even Indianapolis (115 miles) - if a county receives stations from more than one city, it will be included in whichever city's DMA it watches TV from more.
On a final note, although the entire state of KY bleeds blue, just about everyone I've met who keeps up with sports (after growing up there) follows Louisville to a degree, and likes them in all but one game a year. Even here in Ashland, right in the middle of Huntington's market area and three hours from Louisville, UL is just as well known and followed as MU.
tl;dr - Louisville is a more major city than SamC wants you to think, and DMAs are not accurate market representation outside of the local news.
I don't care if you think Louisville is a "big city" or a "major city" or a "box of tic tacs". The point, is to not buy into the "AAC Lie", which is "this school is in X city, therefore automatically 'everybody' there like the team" and "this school has X thousand students, therefore automatically 'every' student lives and dies with the team." Which has been modified with this new "lower CUSA lie" which is "someday everybody in X city will start following some college in that city" and "this school has X thousand students, and someday they are going to start following their school's teams".
The world simply does not work that way. There are lots of cities bigger than Huntington, but the %age of people that care is far greater than most other places. And there are lots of schools bigger than MU, but, bluntly, in a lot of cases (UNCC, ODU, UT everywhere but Austin, Florida anything besides U of or State, etc) kids went there because sports were not their "thing". Their friends who like sports self-selected elsewhere. It is how the world works. And why Cincinnati gives away football tickets.
The world simply does not work that way. There are lots of cities bigger than Huntington, but the %age of people that care is far greater than most other places. And there are lots of schools bigger than MU, but, bluntly, in a lot of cases (UNCC, ODU, UT everywhere but Austin, Florida anything besides U of or State, etc) kids went there because sports were not their "thing". Their friends who like sports self-selected elsewhere. It is how the world works. And why Cincinnati gives away football tickets.
To the extent that people that matter (i.e. networks and ad buyers) believe the AAC Lie, then ODU and UNCC fit the bill as much as the current AAC members. They are IN big cities, they just are not SIGNIFICANT IN those big cities. And they have large numbers of students, 99.9% of which could not care less about the school's sports teams, having self-selected that school over other options with sports.
Personally, I don't think even the emptiest of the empty suits running ESPN really believe the AAC Lie. It is just a party line they have to spew to woo the ad buyers. And the ad buyers are not so blind as to see the virtually empty AAC stadiums (despite free or nearly free tickets) and TV ratings with no local bump whatsoever.
Personally, I don't think even the emptiest of the empty suits running ESPN really believe the AAC Lie. It is just a party line they have to spew to woo the ad buyers. And the ad buyers are not so blind as to see the virtually empty AAC stadiums (despite free or nearly free tickets) and TV ratings with no local bump whatsoever.
The reason the DMA area is combined is because Huntington and Charleston are just 44 miles apart and the local news stations broadcast to this area which is not all that dissimilar to lots of other TV markets around the country where you have cities that are so close . For example you could look at one of the most well known in Dallas/Ft Worth which by comparison is a little closer at 31 miles. Obviously Huntington and Charleston are not as large as Dallas and Fort Worth but the distances are not much different in the areas both DMAs serve.
It's not all that similar as Louisville and Lexington are 70+ miles apart. That would be like combining the distance with Huntington/Charleston then adding the distance of Dallas/Ft Worth. It is just not a valid comparison. Even less so when you start bringing cities in to the conversation like Cincinnati, Indianapolis that are 100+ miles away. It's not comparable.
It doesnt matter as those TV sets are still part of the viewing audience that Marshall's local TV broadcast reach. That would be like trying to downplay Louisville's TV market because southern Indiana residents are primarily IU fans and southern Indiana makes up a nice little chunk of Louisville's TV market. Its still Louisville's local TV market.
