When you bring up pro teams, it reminds me that in a few cases the cities with a high number of pro teams-like say Denver-the college teams play second fiddle.  CU is lucky to get 45,000-50000 out for a football game  and that was true when they were good.  I think Missou is a little overshadowed by St Louis sports and there are probably several more.  Philly would be another example close to our hearts.  You can spend all you want, but you better be very, very good to get the top billing in those cases.  And of course we are not in a city like that so it's not real appropriate for us.  Still agree with the athletics =visibilty for sure.  In a sense,  we're not competing with pro teams as much as a college team up the road that is essentially a pro team.

Jeff, I actually looked up the metro numbers before I posted. I guess I used the Montgomery County number, which is around 900K, instead of the metro number. I stand corrected, and will kiss my journalism career goodbye!

But getting back to spending money and how much impact athletics have on a university, someone earlier mentioned UConn. We played them in their tourney back in 1979 and they were not what they are now. The Big East and ESPN really put those teams on the map. Seton Hall? Are you kidding me? They were nothing before the Big East. I think that game in 1979 was one of the first things ESPN televised. Our basketball budget would have to raised about 1M annually to even think about competing with the big boys. The average Big East budget is close to 5M. This is a great article I found about Gonzaga which is right on this topic: http://www.matr.net/article-10265.html

Good points on budget and a great article cited.

Surprised about your Dissing of Seton Hall history though. They were nationally prominent for years as they played close to NYC through the 30's through the 50's .SOmewhere in there I believe they won an NIT when it was the real tourney beating St Johns if I remember reading my gramps hoops magazines correctly. Like the same NIT we hang in the rafters from 1941.

Bill Raftery,, one of my favorite anylysts was the coach there when I was in HS and the only bids to the Dance  given were conference champs. THe Big East and PJ Carlissimo did put them on the map but they were relevant like St Johns< LIU, Manhattan and several others early on bringing teams like Depaul with George Mikan,. Loyola and others to the Garden for a basketball hungry population.

You're right about the eastern teams you mentioned as being solid back in the day. I was referring to the change in the landscape of some of the big east teams when the league formed and they were routinely playing on TV. Most, if not all, were playing games in tiny campus gyms. The Convo was a better facility than all of the big east teams had for a long time. Their money spending and marketing has really propelled them to the top of the food chain in basketball. Average budget is 4.5M. Marquette spends the most at 8M.

There is a very good article (NCAA longshots poised for big bump) in today's (4/1) editon of "The Record"
(www.northjersey.com).
 
The article discusses the positive impact appearing and advancing in the NCAA tournament has on applications and enrollment.
According to the article,Butler had a 41% increase in applications over last year.

Here's the article.  The numbers are pretty impressive.  The only thing that might skew the application numbers though is that in many cases, Butler and Morehead included, applying online is now free.  I wonder what those numbers would be if you had to attach a check to apply like you did in the "olden days."

Article in the Washington Post about the bump VCU has received from this year's tourney and the coming rise in applications they expect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/virginia-commonwealth-university-school-spirit-at-an-all-time-high-even-after-final-four-loss-to-butler/2011/04/02/AFbw6DSC_story.html

Other universities have found that March Madness success quickly translates into admissions success, with more applications from a wider range of students. It will be months before VCU’s administrators will learn if the same is true for them, but the school’s admissions Web site has seen a spike in hits, said Pamela D. Lepley, VCU’s executive director of university relations.

“It certainly makes recruiting easier,” she said. “Now you don’t have to explain who VCU is.”

In the past two weeks, “VCU” has been a trending topic on Google, and the university’s main Web site has been getting millions of hits — including 11 million last Sunday when the Rams beat Kansas to make it into the Final Four.