Being America's most well known Catholic university and having Natty's coming out of your butt sure helps.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/news/companies/notre-dame-college-football-tickets/
Notre Dame is the Yankees or Red Sox of college football, love 'em or hate 'em, you are probably reacting to the score of their game on the ESPN ticker.
The fact that you brought up the football program in a basketball thread speaks for itself.