Football is the economic driver here and football fans are what brings in the money. The absolute most important thing to consider is whether or not these schools have football fans? Basketball fans are somewhat appealing, but football fans are considerably more important. Radford can have a few thousand people show up for a bball game, but it takes a really strong fanbase to fill football stadiums.

And that's not only true of home stadiums. Fanbases that buy bowl tickets and away game tickets are quite important too. Look at the bowl deals. That extra money is quite important to leagues.

There's a variety of reasons why certain schools have large fanbases and others do not. It has "something" to do with the size of markets and state populations, but those things are clearly not as important as you all make them. You can't drive through that state and not see WVU bumperstickers, flags, T-shirts, ball caps. Heck, I see those things quite a a bit down here in the Charlotte area. I saw them in the Blacksburg and Roanoke areas some and I'm sure they're to be found in places like Western PA and Jersey. Other than Bill Cosby, I've hardly ever run into someone with Temple gear. You might find some alums rocking that stuff right around campus, but that's it.

I actually feel UCONN has a decent fanbase, but their stadium being so far away from the school pretty much assures that they won't develop into a fanbase that supports football passionately.

I was in the Navy, and I never ran into truly passionate Navy fans. Obviously some of the officers were Annapolis grads and they would get together for that one game a year, but that was about all I recall ever hearing about the football team.