The Steelers have also run the AFC North for most of its existence, amirite? Penguins and Wings fans in Central Ohio make sense, as Columbus obviously didn't have a team until 2000. Good teams, especially the long-dominant ones, have more fans. How many Big Ten teams run their state the same way OSU fans run Ohio?
Nebraska. Probably Iowa, though I'm sure Cyclone fans would complain. Wisconsin and Minnesota too. Not Penn State, though, given Pitt and the pro teams. Not Maryland or Rutgers, as Penn State has huge inroads in both states.
Yes, Columbus is a true modern day melting pot of people who grew up elsewhere, with old time allegiances with random college and professional sports teams. Most of us already clearly understand that. The difference, in this specific discussion, is that some people in Austin conspired with our former investor/operator to steal our team and relocate it to Austin. That is an offense that should never be forgotten, especially in this thread..
I always find the sports fandom in my area pretty interesting. Generally speaking were most oftenly part of the Detroit sports market but its not always represented as such. Most important is obviously Ohio State vs. Michigan...which is legit 50/50 loyalty up here on the border. All the way over on this side of the state, the Steelers are probably the most popular NFL team. Browns might be a close second...with the Bengals trailing them. The Lions are probably a distant 4th. Baseball is Tigers or Guardians, pretty even. NBA is predominantly Cavs. NHL is predominantly Red Wings AND MOST IMPORTANTLY , MLS is predominantly CREW.....all like 20 of us up here! /endoftangent
I’m up in the traverse city area a few times a year and from what I have seen, State is more popular the further you get from Ann Arbor.
Not all of them do in the same way OSU does for Ohio. Example: How many people in NJ care about Rutgers that aren't students or families of players? While the middle of PA is serious PSU country, how much blue and white will you find in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? Probably not as much. Toledo is deeply divided, but it's probably the only area of the state.
Probably more Penn State fans in NJ (and they've had a lot of famous players from NJ, like Franco and Barkley). Pittsburgh has a large Pitt contingent. Philly has it's CFB fans, but the Birds are more important on the weekends.
This is where your scarlet colored glasses have fogged your view. There are a ton of PSU fan in Western PA (now that Pitt is decent they are drawing some fans but they historically weren't great since 70's so PSU is the dominant fan favorite) and perhaps even more in Eastern PA. They even stretch into MD and NJ and certainly NYC. It's where they recruit heavily. Rutgers, Northwestern, & Purdue are probably the ones that don't fit this conversation. I'm also always intrigued by how many Michigan fans there are in Northern and Central OH. By and large I just think they tend to be antagonist by nature but none the less there sure seems to be a fair amt of them. So while OSU certianoy rules the state, there are good number of non fans.
Twenty years ago I saw a lot more UM crap around Central Ohio. It probably helped that they were beating OSU almost every year in the 90's. The north coast is still close to a 50/50 split from my very informal analysis.
I would assert that Cincinnati is also pretty divided. Maybe more so than Toledo? My Toledo buddy, has told me that Toledo has been a pretty heavy lean towards OSU since Meyer was coach. But last year with TTUN (That Team Up North) winning, a lot of Maize and Blue can be seen again. Ohio is the largest state with only 1 Power 5 football school. So, yes no other school dominates its state like OSU does.
This was closer to the Toledo side of the lake. Probably exaggerated a bit, but I saw a lot of Maize and Blue this past weekend.
Yeah, that has to be it. scUM fans here in the real part of the North Coast are notable because they are relatively rare. OSU is so ingrained here that it's just part of the background on fall Saturdays. The Cleveland news channels all have heavy OSU bias and barely (last I checked) ever mentioned those other guys. At least one, if not 3 of the 4 big broadcast networks have an OSU-centric extra 25-30 minutes on their 11PM newscasts. EDIT: just checked and they don't have that half hour all the time. That seems to be a change. But they do not give a rip about scUM, I do know that.
Agreed with Rutgers and Northwestern. They're definitely more academic, especially Northwestern. Most tickets are $20-$50...they know OSU is a premium game and I'd imagine that the Chicago contingent of OSU fans will show up strong. It's a shame they're not playing Illinois at home this year so we can see where they'd fall. Rutgers also faces the same issues as Northwestern and the (future) two LA teams do...there's a lot of pro sports and other distractions in the nearby area, so the teams need to be really good to draw the casual fans. There was a Dispatch article several years ago about exactly this. During the Rich Rod and Brady Hoke years, a lot of the Central Ohio-based fans weren't as cocky as they were in the 90s. The blue shirts and flags started to find closets. With the exception of Luke Fickell, Cincinnati has traditionally been a basketball school especially with their Xavier rivalry. Divided in football these past few years, sure, but what about prior to that?
Cincinnati is a UK/UL basketball divided city. UC/XU is a big deal the week that it happens. UK/UL is all season long.
My daughter goes to UK. Interesting dynamic is most kids there are from Louisville and apparently a lot of Lexington kids go to UL. Surprisingly there are a ton of Central OH kids at UK too. Her roommate last year was from Hilliard. One this yr is from Powell and another is from another city in OH (and also happens to be sibling of certain player of a certain pro sport team in Columbus). Oh & Austin Sucks (well their pissant owner does).
Cincinnati has historically been divided in its football allegiance between OSU and ND. There are a lot of Catholic schools which usually sent their best players to ND. Notre Dame even hired the coach from one of them as their head coach, though it proved a disaster.
Heck, WKNR is often doing local Buckeyes post-game call-in long after 97.1 has turned it back over to ESPN Radio.
I'm not sure what's on 23 these days, but WKYC has a prominent bureau here, as shown by the sign on one of the downtown buildings. I think at least one of the other big 4 have a dedicated bureau, too.
The Akron Wikipedia page has a Media section which probably has more than you ever wanted to know about the subject.