Thing is, in terms of football, there are vastly more teams across numerous levels, and they're a lot closer together. Not every club is followed mostly by zealots. This may be an extreme example, but look at the West Midland in the UK (Birmingham being the largest city). Compared to Ohio: - The WM is a little over 5,000 sq miles. Ohio is almost 45,000 sq miles. - The WM population is a but over 6 million. Ohio's is close to 12. - There are 16 professional football clubs in the WM - again, in an area 1/8 the size of Ohio - 2 premiership, 3 championship, 1 league two, and 9 in lower divisions. As I understand it, lots of fans follow multiple clubs.
I've never really had a problem with the OSU press. I love Doug Lesmesries and he's not afraid to ask tough questions. Most of them are homers, though.
My disdain for the OSU deep and hard to describe, but it's a mixed of my disdain for the constant felating and doomerism mixed with a dash of the opinion that the OSU press is responsible for the unhealthy expectations of Columbus Sports Fans. You're right, they don't ask the difficult questions in the press conferences but there is no shortage of people who are willing to spout the wildest opinions and hottest takes on their radio shows/newspaper & blog columns.
I don't have that much emotional or attention bandwidth to spread around. But glad to hear that not everyone is a zealot, that has to be exhausting.
Questioning the coverage OSU gets baffles me. The size and scope of OSU’s reach is well beyond anything else. With one of the largest numbers of enrolled students of any university, the alumni base is massive on a scale that dwarfs everything else. Not to mention OSU is one of the largest employers in the region and is able to put 100,000+ in the stadium every game with another huge number of people that sit in the parking lot to watch at their tailgate. OSU fans regularly outnumber the home fans in many stadiums and bowl games. There are alumni chapters everywhere. Yell “OH!” Just about anywhere and you will get a response “IO!” There are so many other things to get your panties in a bunch about, media coverage of Ohio State University shouldn’t be in the top 10 or 20.
You also wouldn’t want to marry into the Royal Family either. The scrutiny of all of them is beyond intense (Meghan wasn’t singled out in the slightest, they all get it). As far as sports go, Celtic and Rangers are the worst by far for the mania. I’d label the rest of the UK as merely passionate ; )
I used to love working at Skyline during the early-season TOSU blowout wins. Opening the store on Saturdays was a ghost town when the Bucks played at noon, other than at halftime. I would be gone by the time the game ended. Easy way to earn a few bucks while not missing competitive games for the most part.
I have a Block O tattoo on my ankle. A few years back, my wife and I were on a float trip in Alaska down the Mendenhall River. I guy saw my tattoo and started in on how Texas had a bigger fanbase. It was jovial ribbing, a fun back and forth, until the one cabin on a bend in the river was flying a Block O flag on top of a TBDBITL flag. He didn’t say much the rest of the trip.
I think OSU and Celtic fans both share a bit of "big fish, small pond" syndrome. OSU will, as we all are aware, typically run the table on the regular season...just like how Celtic will be near the top of the SPL year after year after year. Is it not uncommon for the better team of Rangers and Celtic to win the title? How many times has OSU been in the running for the Big Ten championship (nowadays, a berth in the championship game) with 1-2 games left in the season? It's been so rare when OSU finished .500 you have to go way back to find their last 4-5 times they've finished .500 or worse. Without looking into it, I think it's been maybe twice since 1996 or so and one of those was with an interim head coach in Luke Fickell. All sorts of teams have come and gone from the AP Top 25 with the exception of just one or two. But...when it comes time to play teams from other major conferences, OSU doesn't have a stellar record against the SEC, just like how Celtic has a terrible road record in the UEFA CL. As common as it is for OSU to run the table, it's also common for them to hit a buzzsaw at the end of the season. Current OSU students will never really care as much as the alumni and big-money donors who obviously want a return on their investment. Students obtain their $39-or-whatever student tickets and many of them won't show up until just after kickoff. If it's a blowout game, bad weather or whatever, many of them are back across High St by midway through the 4th quarter. It's probably safe to say that the majority of students are there for the social outing, study breaks or whatever. Could Wilfried Nancy have done more if Celtic fans weren't so impatient? We'll never know.
Some people I know were visiting Brazil. They were in a very long line waiting for whatever. Some local came up to them and said there was another line for seniors that was much quicker. The local dude recognized the OSU logo on the shirt because he previously spent time in Cleveland.
…and yet ESPiN will eagerly go out of their way to stick a finger in the eye of hundreds of thousands of alumni with their bias. Not a good business model.
In point of fact, Meghan and Harry' were beloved by the public. Idolized. At one point they were both more popular than the queen herself. It took real effort to alienate all those people and destroy a level of popularity that celebrities would pay millions for and that they had had free of charge.
It went south for them due to Meghan’s excessive spending of taxpayer’s money (Jimmy parallels) and her distaste for work (royal duties). She also has admitted after the fact to lying in her court cases against British media. Harry’s not helping either, he’s on his 3rd court case (keeps losing) trying to get taxpayers to pay for his security when he visits the UK.
Celtic 1-1 at halftime in the SPFL Final. Hearts are looking for their first championship since 1920 I believe