Pitt surrounded in this 'Fan Map'
- Thread starter TIGER-PAUL
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I saw that a couple of weeks ago.
The thing that's most amazing to me is that there are schools like Cincinnati, who apparently have no presence, let alone a school like Temple.
Look at South Carolina!.Where is Clemson...
I do not understand how "fandom" is measured... as it seems to me.. that the Pitt/PSU disparity is far greater in most of Allegheny County than the ratios given there..
The thing that's most amazing to me is that there are schools like Cincinnati, who apparently have no presence, let alone a school like Temple.
Look at South Carolina!.Where is Clemson...
I do not understand how "fandom" is measured... as it seems to me.. that the Pitt/PSU disparity is far greater in most of Allegheny County than the ratios given there..
According to that map, Pitt actually has territory where it is the number 1 team. Pitt is also the second team for rest of Western PA.
That's better than some other P5 schools. Wake Forrest, Georgia Tech, Duke, and others do not have any terrritory.
This post was edited on 2/23 2:16 PM by PittEngineer
That's better than some other P5 schools. Wake Forrest, Georgia Tech, Duke, and others do not have any terrritory.
This post was edited on 2/23 2:16 PM by PittEngineer
Interesting, but much like ever-popular red/blue political maps, showing geographic scope without adjusting for population density is often a poor depiction.
There are a few interesting "population distorted" U.S maps published that attempt to normalize the visual disparity between land mass and population mass to better display polls. I'm always surprised this approach really hasn't gained any traction, as it seems to tell a much more accurate picture.
There are a few interesting "population distorted" U.S maps published that attempt to normalize the visual disparity between land mass and population mass to better display polls. I'm always surprised this approach really hasn't gained any traction, as it seems to tell a much more accurate picture.
Something about this map seems wrong. Cincinnati doesn't even show up in the top 3 for any zip codes in the city. That seems unrealistic. The top 3 in the city are Ohio State, Kentucky, and Michigan. I'm sure Cincy has at least 10% of the fans in that city.. if not much more.
also the "fandom" on this map is based upon "Likes" on Facebook
also the "fandom" on this map is based upon "Likes" on Facebook
There you have it. The reason Pitt has a small die hard fan base. Surrounded by large tOSU, WVU and Ped State fan bases and fighting 3 Pro sports teams in our own city.
How do you search by zip code to show the most popular teams in a certain zip code?
I would have said OSU was #1 in Cincy but I would have had ND #2 and Kentucky #3 popular. I dont understand how Michigan got in there at all. But, I do know that Cincy has pretty much a Temple following in Cincinnati. As good as they've been, they weren't even selling out there 33,000 seat stadium in the Pike/Gilyard days. And their 8,000 seat bball arena almost never sells out.
Yes. It's pretty sobering when seen like this. When you consider that those blotches add up to money (or lack thereof) for the respective programs, and that money equates to success in college sports (winner takes all, little to no revenue sharing, no reverse-order draft picks to artificially create competitive balance, etc) ... and the fact that even the pretense of the NCAA trying to regulate cheating has dissolved in recent years.
Throw in that Pitt alum actually donate less, not more, to try to compensate for the natural deficiencies that are shown here, plus our own self-sanctioning that nobody else does, and it's actually amazing Pitt has the success it does (though as others point out, maybe even more so that a Cincinnati or Georgia Tech can have success as well).
For my immediate selfish Saturday afternoon interests I am glad that Pitt is at least trying to be somewhat competitive in football again, but you see this and you are struck by the ultimate futility. The discrepancies only seem to be headed higher too. Paying players, which is sounding more inevitable, will just widen it. So without some further artificial balancing like pro sports do, I wonder how Pitt can continue to remain in this business.
What did anyone expect? Am I the only one encouraged by this map? Pitt dominates the Pittsburgh Metro area. We hear all the time that there are more PSU fans or WVU fans or ND fans, etc. This is untrue. The Pittsburgh area, home to 2 million people is PITT.
Did people think we would be the #1 team in Youngstown or Erie or Philly or Johnstown? This is about exactly what I would have expected. The only surprise is that there are more WVU fans in the SW PA hinterlands of Fayette-nam and Green County though it shouldn't have been a surprise.
On the map, it looks like a small geographic area, and it is, but its very populated. Did you not think PSU would control most of PA?
Another thing this map highlights is what we all know to be true, that everybody likes a winner.
Oregon dominates the west, including much of California. That certainly wasn't true at all until Oregon starting winning with an exciting offense and attention grabbing uniforms. If Oregon were to become mediocre again, that fan support would go elsewhere. If Cal were to emphasize football and become a powerhouse, they would likely reclaim a lot of that northern California support.
Which is to say that there is probably a lot of soft, but latent support for Pitt, that would be awakened by sustained winning.
Oregon dominates the west, including much of California. That certainly wasn't true at all until Oregon starting winning with an exciting offense and attention grabbing uniforms. If Oregon were to become mediocre again, that fan support would go elsewhere. If Cal were to emphasize football and become a powerhouse, they would likely reclaim a lot of that northern California support.
Which is to say that there is probably a lot of soft, but latent support for Pitt, that would be awakened by sustained winning.
We need an international version...
So we can see all of the yellow from the WVU fandom across the world.
So we can see all of the yellow from the WVU fandom across the world.
I definitely agree with that, and it is part of my lament that Pitt didn't capitalize on its success of the late 70's / early 80's by reinforcing it and reinvesting to sustain or increase the success. College sports exploded shortly thereafter due to ESPN (largely) and Pitt could have easily been one of the elite programs to cash in, if only we had maintained our success. I won't say our "blotch" today would have been as large as those around us, but it definitely would have been wider and deeper (and at the expense of each of those around us).
What am I doing wrong? When I zoom in, I can only get to the point where it pretty much shows the entire Pittsburgh metro area on my computer screen. I can "guesstimate" where my zip code is but is there a way to know for sure? The article makes it sounds like you can zoom by zip code almost like a cell phone coverage map and see who your neighborhood roots for.
We are a city school. Not a state school. We have the city, one of the greatest cities in the nation. We don't need anything else. It's not wvu, psu, and osu..it's the steelers and ourselves who stunt Pitts popularity.
I don't know what you're doing wrong. Once you zoom in all the way you can hover over each zip code and get the breakdown. Oakland is 44% Pitt, 15% Nitters, 5% Buckeye, and surprisingly 36% other.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/upsh
Pitt sports is very fair weather for most of the region. Outside the die hards, they need to be good. You watch, if they can get an 10-2, 11-1 or 12-0 season with some big name opponents, they will draw, they don't need to tarp the upper deck or sing "Sweet Caroline" they need to be WINNERS and the fans will come.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong either. The farthest I can zoom in is to get to an area that covers all of SW PA, the WV Panhandle and some of Central PA. I can't zoom any farther than that. I did "search for location" and entered a zip code but it just brings me to the screen I just mentioned. Strange.
So are you just hitting the "+" zoom in button and if you hit it 6 or 7 times, it brings you to the individual zip code? It doesnt do that for me.
I'm using the mouse wheel. Try a different browser. It worked for me in Firefox and Chrome but not Internet Explorer (no surprise)
