Posted on 12/05/2008 12:54:10 PM PST by bamahead
College football has been conquered, in nearly every respect, by the Deep South.
The Southeastern Conference, a 76-year-old coalition of 12 universities in nine Southern states stretching from Louisiana to Florida, has won three national college football titles in five years, including the last two by blowout, and has an unrivaled 11-4 record in the Bowl Championship Series since 1999.
Its teams lead the nation in average attendance, have five of the 12 highest-paid coaches in college football and just signed two broadcast deals worth as much as $3 billion over the next 15 years. Tomorrow, Alabama and Florida, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 by the Associated Press, play for the conference title -- with the winner likely heading to the national title game.
The engine of this success is college football's unshakable primacy in Southern culture -- plus the recent shifts in population and wealth, the protection of politicians and some prescient financial moves by the conference that have reinforced it.
In recent years, the South has undergone rapid growth. Twenty-seven of the 50 fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the country in 2007 were in the South, while personal-income growth in the region outpaced the national average over the past decade. These changes have added muscle to the South's historic passion for college football. While they rank low in many measures like per-capita income and educational achievement, states like Alabama and Mississippi rank close to the top in the percentage of high-school students who play football. And among states that have more than 10 native sons playing in the National Football League, the top six producers by percentage of population are Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida and Georgia...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Go Gators
Beat Bama.
I think this article is trying to make some sort of profound observation, but I think the reason the SEC is so succesful is because football is more popular in the South than in any other large region in the country.
What's next, an article analyzing why the best collegiate hockey teams come from Northern schools?
Who needs the NFL when you got the SEC??????????????
When either ya’ll (Alabama) or Florida win the National Championship in January (though I expect it to be Florida), I fully expect the fans to chant SEC..SEC..SEC like the LSU fans did this January.
ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
What irritates me is that the income discussions rarely include the corresponding low cost of living. The difference between what you can do with a $50,000 salary in the South vs Cali or NY is astounding.
You mean other than the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans?
Yeah.... not so much, buddy.
In addition to Golden Flake Potato Chips, a Coke franchise, and his son practically calls all the shots in T-town!!!
It’s pretty simple, really.
Patriots and ruggedly individualistic Americans are flocking together in the South. These states are red because of the collective traditional American values of the people here.
Of course we’re beating the pants off the metro-sexual blue states.
I thought they were from the Midwest???Minnesota, N Dakota???
Actually every section of the country has had good teams at one time or another but the SEC has been more consistent.
Saints, Titans, Falcons, Jaguars, Bucs, Panthers (South Carolina) are in the South. College Football will always be more popular, but it isn’t like it is popular because the NFL isn’t there.
That hasn’t hurt the popularity of LSU, Tenn, UGA, UF, or South Carolina
I like hockey too, but it's no replacement for the all-American sport of basketball. That's my one complaint about the SEC, at least those schools south of the Tennessee border, they just have never taken basketball seriously. Kentucky draws 24K a game, Tennessee close to 20K a game and Vandy regularly over 10K, but the rest of the conference is pretty pitiful. And while football in the fall is great, nothing is more sad and tiresome than wasting basketball season after the bowl games obsessing about football.
Where was it Herb Brooks coached for so long????
Minimal? New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Carolina, TN, Tampa Bay (and yes, I do consider that far south to be a part of Dixie), Houston, Dallas......8 doesn’t seem so minimal....
No, it’s mainly because in southern states it’s much easier to play sports all year round. Especially in South Florida, which has by far the highest proportion of NFL players.
Consider there aren’t any decent college baseball team/programs north of the mason-dixon line, pro golfers/tennis players live south, on and on.
Those states are pretty far north....
You can’t speak Southern and leave out Texas football son
It would be interesting to take the National Champion and have them play the worst team in the NFL.
I grew up in Southern California where nobody (except alum) pays attention to college sports. When I moved to Alabama, I got one of the standard questions*..."Who do you go for?" This question assumes one of two answers: Auburn or Alabama. I just figured the Charges could beat either on.
Now that I think about it, I was probably wrong...;)
*The other standard question is, "Do you have a home church?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.