KCPowercat wrote:As I stated before, I dont' disagree with you. What I'm asking is for you to provide better factors with stats, not simply rants. How many UMKC alumni are in KC? Back up your "facts".
How about:
- TV ratings
- tickets sold when the local teams play in KC
- # of season ticket holders living in KC
Many factors go into it. As a KSU fan, I believe KU has the most support in the KC metro due to their proximity to the metro, # of alumni, and success of the basketball program being the primary reasons. KSU and MU are well represented probably pretty equally but not as much as KU. That's my observation. I also believe MU will lose more casual fans in KC due to people liking the Big 12.
Your proposed criteria for measuring fan support wouldn't prove anything you've claimed in your post.
If tickets sold when local teams play in KC were a good measure--and, like the other criteria you cite, it's not--then one could conclude from past MU/KU games at Arrowhead that KC supports Mizzou much more strongly than Kansas. And what were the football TV ratings like for Kansas games this year, and last year, and the year before? How did they compare with ratings for Mizzou, or for Kansas State--the area's distant third favorite team? There are certainly more hardcore KU basketball fans in KC based on their program's on-court success, but football is the region's favorite sport and there are far more Mizzou football fans in KC than Kansas fans.
As far as season ticket sales are concerned, I'm not sure what that would prove. Wealthy people will spend more money on conveniently located sporting events than will less wealthy people on less conveniently located sporting events. KU is a half hour drive from its largest and wealthiest concentration of fans in Johnson County; Mizzou is three times that far from a KC fan base that generally has less disposable income.
Your belief that people like the Big 12, and that the casual fan's affection for a conference composed of fewer and fewer midwestern teams will cause Mizzou to lose support in KC, is equally puzzling. Provide some facts. My observation is that people in this area (Mizzou fans included) want to like the Big 12, but the conference has become too dysfunctional and Texas-centric to be seen as "ours" anymore. Makes more sense to speculate that Mizzou's departure could snuff out whatever residual affection there is for it.