Rutgers Football: Scarlet Knights Will Always Struggle To Maintain Fanbase

It's a pretty exciting time for Rutgers football fans as the Scarlet Knights are putting the finishing touches on what could be the greatest recruiting class in school history.  Coach Greg Schiano is proving to be serious about backing up his promise to improve upon last year's disappointing 4-8 season, the first one in six years that Rutgers failed to go to a post season bowl game.

With all the encouraging signs—the 2011 recruiting class and the hiring of new offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti being high on the list—that Rutgers will turn around a season that was interrupted by the traumatic injury linebacker Eric LeGrand suffered, it is still likely that Rutgers will always have to struggle to grow and maintain it's fan base.

Creating new fans and keeping the old ones will always present a challenge for Rutgers unlike any school in the country. There are two reasons.

Rutgers will always be in a fierce competition for sports fan's discretionary spending, and Rutgers does not have a long tradition as a major college football program.

The Chicago Cubs have tradition. Their fans go to their games win or lose because it's the thing to do. Most of the great college football programs have this kind of tradition.

Though it's the only major college football team in the country's largest market, there are nine New York/New Jersey professional sports teams, including the NFL's Jets and Giants, to the North, and there are five Philadelphia professional sports teams, including the NFL's Eagles, to the South.

Rutgers, located in the central New Jersey town of New Brunswick, is only 36 miles from New York City and only 60 miles from Philadelphia.

The University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, is the leading NCAA team when it comes to football attendance.  It packs 109,000 fans into every one of its home games, even though it is only 40 miles from the great sports town of Detroit and its four professional teams.

Michigan has been playing football since 1879 and has 884 wins, the most in college football history. The Wolverines were a founding member of the Big Ten Conference in 1896 and have been playing big time college football for a long time.

Rutgers, even though it played in the first college football game ever against nearby Princeton University, hasn't become a player on the big time football stage until the late 1970's.

In the 1970's, the NFL was already making it's way past major league baseball as the nation's No. 1 pastime. When Michigan started its illustrious football legacy, the NFL didn't even exist.

The NFL was formed in 1920 and it wasn't until the famous 1958 Colts/Giants Championship game that the league really caught on with the American public. 

In 1958 Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell were some of the most difficult teams on Rutgers' schedule.  In 1958 Rutgers was lucky to draw 15,000 fans a game.

Other than Michigan and a couple of others, most of the NCAA football teams with the largest attendance are just not located near large metropolitan areas.

Ohio State and Penn State are the schools with the No. 2 and No. 3 largest average attendance.

Penn State (107,000) is situated in the middle of Pennsylvania, 200 miles from Philadelphia and 140 mile from Pittsburgh.  Ohio State lies in the middle of Ohio, 125 miles south of Cleveland and 100 miles north of Cincinnati.

Both of these schools have long traditions of playing major college football dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.

Numbers 4-10 are members of the SEC.  Most of these schools are based in the middle of Southern rural states and professional sports didn't come to this part of the country until the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta in the mid 1960's. By that time college football in the South was already known as a "religion."

USC draws 85,000 a game and is No. 11 on the list. USC has a long tradition of football success and for the last 15 years it hasn't had to compete with an NFL team. The Raiders, the last NFL team to play in Los Angeles, moved back to Oakland in 1995.

Most of the 36 schools that ranked higher in attendance than Rutgers (49,000), like Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Clemson for example, are all located hundreds of miles from professional sports teams.

Notre Dame (81,000), located in South Bend, Indiana, is only 75 miles from Chicago, but it probably has the greatest tradition in all of college football.

Rutgers has come a long way since they went big time in the late 1970's. They've more than doubled their average attendance.

Last year they outdrew Miami, a team with five National Championships, Boston College, Maryland, Arizona State, Utah, and 72 other schools, many with much more tradition.

West Virginia (57,000), the University of Pittsburgh (53,000),  and USF (52,000) were the three Big East teams that outdrew Rutgers in 2009.

Morgantown, West Virginia, the home of the Mountaineers, is 75 miles from Pittsburgh but it's the biggest ticket for the entire state of West Virginia. The whole state rallies around the Mountaineers—they don't have any professional sports teams.

The University of Pittsburgh has to compete with three professional sports teams, including the beloved Pittsburgh Steelers.  Much like Rutgers, if they don't win, they are not going to draw well. 

USF has to compete with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the  Tampa Bay Rays of  Major League  Baseball, and an the NHL Tampa Bay Lightning.  Considering that USF didn't even have a football team until 1997, and didn't compete in Division 1A until 2001, they've done a great job.

USF has produced some excellent teams in a football hungry state. If they have to continue to put winning teams on the field to maintain their attendance remains to be seen.

Rutgers has won a lot of games over the last six years, but if they have another year like 2010 (4-8) their attendance is going to decrease.

In 2010 Rutgers home attendance took a slight drop (46,000). 

This is what happened to the Miami Hurricanes. They drew well when they were winning National Championships ,but since they've stopped winning 11 and 12 games a year, they've lost a lot of attendance.  They also have to compete with four professional sports teams. When they were winning all those championships they only had to compete with the Dolphins.

Rutgers has to compete with 14 major professional sports teams. Most of these teams have built up tradition dating back to the time Rutgers wasn't a factor on the major college football scene. 

It's going to be a struggle for the Scarlet Knights to enlarge and maintain their fan base.  Winning a Big East Championship and going to a BCS game would be a good first step towards making sure it happens.

Winning a National Championship would probably be the best thing any team could to draw bigger crowds and build a tradition strong enough to compete with long-standing professional sports teams.