Well, we could schedule Notre Dame, Southern California, Michigan, and Penn State every year, but we would be kissing any title hopes goodbye. Mission 1 is: Win football games and championships Mission 2 is: Make money while doing it.
Michigan - Ann Arbor is a suburb of Detroit (952,000) Ohio St - Columbus (712,000) Penn St - located between Pittsburgh (335,000) and Philly (12,300,000) By comparison: Georgia - Athens is 70 miles from Atlanta (416,000) LSU - Baton Rouge (295,000 current conservative est) is the largest "SEC city" Shall we include the metropolises of Starkville, Gainesville, Oxford, Tuscaloosa, etc.? We at LSU can put 92,000 in Tiger Stadium for only the big games, there will be empty seats for the opener and a few other home games this year. We could fill a 100,000 seat stadium maybe twice a year at best right now.
We just set a record for season tickets with 67,800. And that's with a crappy home schedule this year. Fans will pay almost anything as long as their team is winning. The quality of the opponent is not as important as you think.
It's not 2 missions at all, but rather the same mission. The school can make money whether we win or not, but we make the most money when we are winning & thus it is our goal. Still, at times it feels like our only goal is money.
U.S. Census says population of Atlanta, Ga is 423,019 (metro area is about 4.9 million) http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/1304000.html But Philly doesn't have 12 million, the State of Pa does. Philly is 1.5 million.
