Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

It remains funny to me that the NCAA gave up the sit-out year to try to hold off paying players. 

Though they wrapped the sit-out rule in such silly language, they left it super vulnerable.

All those states are in the mid-west, and aren't the populations about the same?  For that matter Alabama or Louisana isn't heavily populated either. 

Ah, no.  

Population at 2020 census with 2024 est:

• 13.0M Pennsylvania 13.1M
• 12.8M Illinois 12.7M (yes, they are shrinking)
• 11.8M Ohio 11.9M
• 10.1M Michigan 10.1M
• 6.8M Indiana 6.9M
• 5.9M Wisconsin 6.0M
• 5.7M Minnesota 5.8M
• 5.0M Alabama 5.2M
• 4.7M Louisiana 4.6M

PA and IL are pretty close then a drop of about 1M to Ohio, then a drop of ~1.7M to Michigan.  I guess you could say that those are "about the same" but Wisconsin's population is barely over 1/2 of Ohio's and less than 1/2 of PA's or IL's.  That does matter both for NIL and for recruits in the area.  Assuming the same density of high-end football recruits (which isn't true nationally but *might* be roughly true for Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin) Ohio would have roughly twice as many high end recruits as Wisconsin.  


I also think that vis-a-vis fanbase size the B1G is helped by having a MUCH larger "disapora" of people who were born in the midwest or who are second or third generation from there.  Ie, if you go back 45 years (1980) Florida's population was 7th still behind behind OH, IL, PA.  If you go back 85 years (1940):

• Current B1G states PA, IL, and OH were the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most populous behind only NY.  
• Texas was still less populous than those three and had only marginally more people than Michigan.  
• Florida's population was <2M, roughly a quarter of Ohio's.  

In terms of overall fanbase size I think there are a LOT more people who root for Ohio State or Michigan because their grandpa grew up there than there are people who root for even Texas let alone Georgia, Alabama, or Florida because their grandpa grew up there.  

And if I can find donors willing to buy me a Ferrari, I'll have a Ferrari.

Don't need a quantum computer to crack that code...

If only you had a handful of alumni that were successful engineers. 

You don't just need wealthy alumni, you need wealthy alumni that are happy to spend significant amounts of money buying colllege football players.  And the truth is that plenty of wealthy alumni don't give a rat's ass about the school's football program. 

Michael Dell doesn't give a dime to UT athletics, instead he'd rather support and enrich the community by building hospitals and funding med schools.

And I'm cool with that.