ABQCOWBOY
Regular Joe....
- Messages
- 58,929
- Reaction score
- 27,716
The30YardSlant;4435298 said:IMO you're overestimating the power of the TCU market. Even in their best years they rarely sell out home games and their merchendise sells about as well in the DFW area as UT-Dallas does. They just don't have a very large following. A&M, Texas, OU and Tech all have much larger followings in DFW. Once you get outside of Waco Baylor's following becomes barely noticable as it is diluted so much by Aggies, Horns, etc. Baylor doesnt even have a pulse in DFW and their inability to recruit the area very well reflects that. I can't remember the last time I walked into a store in DFW not solely based on athletic merchendise that sold anything with a BU on it.
West Virginia has a much better following than those two programs but if they get to claim part of the Pittsburgh market A&M gets to claim Houston, Dallas and San Antonio and my point still stands. There's 250,000 A&M alumni scattered about those regions and every televised A&M game is broadcast there.
My central point here is that adding TCU didnt bring the Big XII any markets they didnt already dominate and at best they will break even in the DFW market. However, they did nothing to compensate for the loss A&M will bring in other regions. Ad this isnt even factoring in the loss of Missouri which takes away some of the KC market and the entire St. Louis market.
Historically, that may be true but now that TCU has a better program and now that there are natural lines to create rivalries within Texas, I think this changes. Either way, the markets that will be pulled by these latest additions and future additions will allow the Big 12 to continue to be successful in any market. Besides, now that they are on ESPN, it doesn't really matter nearly as much. They are going to get even more viewers from a national audience that prior to, would not have been able to watch Big 12 football. All will be fine IMO. We will all know soon enough if the departure of TAM adversely effects the Big 12 ratings or not.