NeutralObserver

Division winners have always had home field for the first game since playoff expansion even before realignment in 2002. The owners want that to reward division winners with something extra that non-division winners don't get. So that's not going to change as long as the owners want to reward division winners. It always isn't as obvious as this year either, what if a division winner is 10-7 and a wildcard is 11-6, but had such an easy schedule that people feel they aren't as good. Should the 11-6 team host just because they have a better record? You have to look at those scenarios too when deciding on a playoff format.

I've been following the yearly estimates for many years, since the oil boom started because I grew up in Dickinson so I'm always interested in seeing how that area is doing. Typically they release the state numbers first, then months later they release the county population estimates and then the city. I don't know why they do it that way, but that's what I've seen. The census web site is also not the easiest to use to find data, I was asked to do a survey once and stated that. Here's their current schedule, looks like county and metro populated should be in March, with city level in May. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/about/schedule.html

I wonder how many counties they are counting to get that number? As far as the Government is concerned, the Bemidji MSA has 46,718 people in the 2023 census estimate. (Which consists of Beltrami county) Bemidji itself has 15,946 as of the 2022 estimate. That's far from 100,000 people. And a little misleading depending on how they are getting their numbers. Search for Bemidji on this page to see the official numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropolitan_statistical_area

Divisional play. The sports outside of football will have Bellevue, Valley City St, Mayville St, Dakota St, Dickinson St and Bismarck St. That's 6 teams, so that could be an Eastern division, and you can play your divisional teams twice, and the others once. Maybe you make one trip out to Montana and play a few games. There's also been talk of neutral site games in Dickinson. The other 6 "full-time" schools are in Montana. (yes, Bismarck St has been accepted into the NAIA, although they haven't announced it themselves. They've applied to the Frontier, so it is assumed they will be voted in like the others were). https://www.naia.org/general/2023-24/releases/NewMemberRelease_Spring2024 Football is a little more complicated because there are football only schools like Eastern Oregon, Southern Oregon, College of Idaho and Arizona Christian, and Bellevue/Bismarck St don't have football right now. But you could still have divisional play to reduce the really long road trips, and maybe have neutral site games early in the season.

I have a Samsung smart TV, and a lot of apps are missing compared to other brands of smart tvs. The apps have to develop one for each vendor, and some of them pick and choose which ones are worth it. You may need to get a Roku stick to fill in the apps that Samsung doesn't provide.

Yes, but that was about three presidents ago and it was only him. Anything that happened then has been stopped for years. The issue that got him fired wasn't from giving diplomas, it was from counting credits that shouldn't have been counted which inflated the attendance numbers. Any issues with foreign students was uncovered after that president left, and was cleared up by 2015(?) when their accreditation was renewed for 10 years.

There's maybe three realistic options. 1)Frontier with Dickinson St 2)D3 UMAC 3)Independent This story talks about D2 as an option, but I don't see them getting into the Northern Sun even if they wanted to. https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/mayville-state-weighs-options-for-future-conference-home

The Bismarck Event Center has a huge scoreboard in the middle that gets in the way. Their kickers have just had to learn how to kick around it. The only reason the current Bismarck indoor team paused operations is that they got the law changed regarding workman's comp that made it unaffordable to have a team. Now that they got it changed they plan to come back in 2025, but we'll have to see if and where they play.

The United flights for Jamestown and Devil's Lake are their only flights, they have no Delta flights, so they really aren't ahead of Grand Forks in any way. They are also bundled together, the Jamestown flight goes up to Devil's Lake before going on to Denver. Which that kind of flight path isn't real common right now but must help make the flights financially work. Dickinson had Delta flights during the height of the oil boom but those are gone, the United flights there I believe still have EAS subsidies.

It's not even context. The #1 area is St Charles, MO, which is literally a suburb of St Louis. It would be like rating Edina or Bloomington, MN as #1 "smalll" college area if they had a college. According to the article, they took anywhere outside of a metropolitan area. But St Charles is literally still in the St Louis Metro area, so they are using a very loose definition of what is in a metro area and what isn't.

With all the subchannels available, in Bismarck you would get around 32 channels total. Which is from 6 channels, that is true, but most of them have multiple sub channels. (I'm getting the channels that are available from this site, if anyone is interested: https://rabbitears.info/market.php ) Dickinson and Williston each get 11 (but not ABC, because Forum has never cared about the far west, even though they own the Dickinson Press.) Where the digital transition does suck is for towns like Bowman, like you mention. If you look at the sites that predict coverage, from this same rabbit ears site I can see in Bowman on the outskirts of town, where you are higher up you might get 1 or 2 at best. Where I'm guessing they used to get strong signals for CBS and PBS, if not NBC. The fact that congress and the FCC did not try to make sure coverage areas stayed the same for areas like this was a failure of that whole transition.

Just some more information since not everyone knew of BEK: BEK broadcasts on the old KXJB signal for the Fargo market, and the old FOX stations signals for Bismarck/Minot. I believe they are on most cable systems because of that (being over the air), so they should be statewide. Or at least their main channel is statewide. They have a second channel, but that is only on the co-op cable systems, Midco doesn't carry that. They do show a lot of high school sports, but also show some college sports and the Bismarck Bucks IFL team. They started from BEK Telecomm co-op in Steele as an online sports network until they got onto the TV stations.

This is semantics... but to me, shutting down entirely would mean stopping all broadcasting of WDAZ and tearing down the TV tower. They did not do that, the station is still broadcasting. Just no local news. The worst thing is that you can't even blame some national corporate ownership, since Forum is "Local". Speaking as a complete outsider, the idea that a town of 50000+ can't support local news is ridiculous. KUMV in Williston still has reporters stationed there and I think still has local news inserts. Although it is true that sending reporters from Bismarck to Williston to cover stories is much harder thing to do than from Fargo to Grand Forks.

If the FCC approves it. If it went through, you'd have NBC and CBS owned by Gray, and ABC and Fox owned by Forum. Sioux Falls has ABC, NBC and Fox all owned by Gray, and CBS owned by Nexstar, so a waiver for a market that size or bigger isn't impossible. Forum will just have to argue that it is in the public's best interest to have co-ownership.

If the Vikings win both remaining games, they are guaranteed at least #5 now, with Seattle losing to Arizona yesterday. That would mean a trip to Philly or Dallas.