Gothmog

Basketball has, by far, the most potential. 3+ million people in the metro, 5.5+ million in the state and only one other DI Basketball team. Plus, a potential crosstown rivalry with the Gophers. The next 10 years will be interesting.

I suppose talking about stadiums is premature at this point. In any case, a semi-annual game at any of those stadiums, or an on-campus stadium, would be great fun. Summit League and MVFC teams don't get enough coverage here in MSP. St Thomas joining the league should greatly enhance the Summit's presence in the metro area. I'm looking forward to it.

Allianz field is closer, bigger and nicer.

You are using the highest number in the estimated range of 12-15K. Even using that potentially inflated number, WSU would still have the smallest football stadium in the FBS. It seems very unlikely that a school with FBS aspirations would tear down a 30K football stadium to build a 12-15K multipurpose stadium.

Nonsense. The worst call of the day was the missed PI in the end zone against ISU. Had the refs gotten that right it might have been 3+3+7=16 and ISU would not have been in position to possibly win at the end.

All-weather stadiums are great in this part of the world. Nevertheless, The players, officials, media, and fans still have to be able to get to the stadium.

That's certainly not surprising. They're the higher-ranked team and they're playing at home.

Nicholls drew 8,500 fans for their first round game last year. I don't see any reason to expect that UND should be able to outbid them for an FCS playoff game. It's about attendance and there will likely be more butts in in seats in Thibodaux than there would have been in Grand Forks. At this point, they have the more established FCS program.

That would have been a very weak call. It's not clear from the replay that he even touched the facemask, much less grasped it.

Again, you're talking about a school that has historically valued local and regional ties over national recognition. It's a huge reach to expect that big of a change so quickly.

UST is a great "get" for the Summit. Its presence in the MSP market offers great potential for the league, and for any mid-major league, to increase its exposure in a major media market. However, mere physical presence in that market isn't enough. To fulfill that promise UST must fund its programs, hire (and pay) coaches at a DI level, build new facilities, and, yes, win games in order to capture the interest and the $$$ of the Twin CIties market. Yes, the MSP market is a big media market, but with that comes intense competition for the sports dollar. We're talking about a school that has so far been content to compete at the DIII level. It has a long way to go before it captures a significant share of the MSP market. Let's not pencil them in as a DI sports juggernaut quite yet.

Yeah, and if they'd have kicked the field goal you'd be coming down on them for that. You can't expect players competing for positions to stop trying even if the score is lopsided. As I understand it, the fake kick was the result of a automatic read. The holder read fake and called that on the field. There's nothing wrong with that. The subsequent score was on a running play. Do you expect the line to not block, or maybe the running back should have stopped at the 1 yard line? Your argument is nothing more than a sour grapes rationalization.

If you think NDSU makes a habit of running up the score against over-matched teams you haven't been watching them over the last few years. They're a ball-control, run out the clock offense. As a rule, they are perfectly happy to sit on leads when more points and bigger leads would be available. Delaware is/was a nationally-ranked team playing at home. They were perfectly capable of defending themselves against NDSU supposedly "running up the score." There is an old response to whining of this sort: If you don't like it stop them from doing it.

It's relevant because it indicates the relative state for the two programs just 4 years ago. Is there any reason to think has UND improved enough and/or that has NDSU dropped off enough to make the game competitive? UND had one of its best seasons since moving to DI that year and yet the game was a embarrassing blowout. Honestly, there's no reason to think that this game won't be more of the same.

That's exactly the point. The house doesn't make money by winning its bet with with bettors more often than it loses, that would expose them to losing money. It locks in a profit by equalizing the amount wagered on either side of a proposition and pocketing its cut.The house isn't interested in gambling with its own money. They don't care if the spread is accurate as long as it locks in their profit.

Well, if the spread really is too high you'd expect some of that legendary "own the farm" money to move it down where it ought to be. At UND +31.5 it's easy money...right? You better get yourself some of that.

You do understand that point spreads are set to equalize betting on both sides of the bet thereby locking in a profit for the house. Other than the initial spread, the spread is set by bettors voting with their dollars.

Sure, the price is less for those games. But that's primarily because there aren't many UND fans buying Bison tickets for games against other teams. Which was, of course, the point in the first place. There's no way around it. The increased demand for this weekend's game is caused primarily by 1) UND fans wanting tickets 2) It's the first home game in 9 months for an NDSU team with a lot of new faces and dynamic new players. Bison fans desire to see UND is, at best, a very distance third if it's much of a factor at all.

Talk about apples and oranges. The last two games you refer to are two months from now and around Thanksgiving time. Can you tell me how many Bison fans would be offering their UND tickets for sale if they were on on 11/9 or 11/23, or any other date for that matter? Of course not, early season games are different.

Most of the tickets being sold are being sold by Bison fans. Nothing wrong with that, but it does indicate that at least those Bison fans are not that enthusiastic about seeing the game. If every Bison ticket holder held on to his/her tickets there wouldn't be a secondary market.

Who do you suppose is selling those tickets?

I remember reading a study a few years that concluded that "rivalry" games are statistically more likely to result in the favored team winning than games between non-rivals.

goo goo ga joob

Time to shut this thread down. It has no purpose but to provide a forum for the personal agendas of a few posters.

The obvious point is that current Summit schools would add sports like baseball or soccer. No expansion necessary. At the moment, there is no problem with the Summit's autobid. And as I said, the Summit schools, especially the ones along I29, won't ever allow there to be a problem. You're imagining a problem that doesn't exist and probably never will.