Interesting. OSU has always had an ideal position to create a big fanbase. First off, they're in a 2M population city with no NFL team right in the middle of a pretty big state, which is perfect for them. They're also the only CFB team (no rival, sorry UC) in their state, which is rare, allowing them to pull in a ton of fans from Cleveland and Cincy (those are NFL cities, but bad franchises) and the other smaller, but still decent sized places like Dayton, Akron, Toledo, etc.
Us? That number looks right honestly. We've got our alumni base and Bloomington locals. That's about it. We've just got to play the cards we've got. Step One is getting our alumni and locals engaged, which the AD and Cig made a lot of progress on last year. I don't sense much CFB allegiance in Indy, I think IU could make some inroads there, especially with the Colts struggling. Maybe we can get our non-alumni bball fans interested too, I don't know, I don't totally understand the mindset of that group when it comes to non-bball sports.
Fortunately, fanbase size is just part of it of what it takes to be good. Big picture our athletic dept revenue is around #30 right now and I bet our FB NIL is similar. If we can get those numbers to top-20, which I think we can do, we'll have the resources to be a sustainable, good football program. It's tough though, our competition is pushing hard to get bigger and better as well.
