Moving on. NIU or Marshall?

I like NIU.

I think Marshall had their down game, and will be ready for this one.

Uh yeah, never mind.......

Yeah, but if we'd've prevailed at crunch time vs. NIU, then we'd've beaten NIU.


(I had a free moment so thought I'd do the favor of posting obo the apolgists, the dreamers.)

You are a much better me than I am! There's no denying that!

Looks like 3-12 to me since the NIU win in 2012 was in January, and thus part of the 2011 season.
http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/mac/bowls...

Prior to 2006 the MAC has a record of 23-20 in bowls. Once the number of bowl games started going crazy, the MAC has only had one year with a winning record in bowls, 2011, and from 2006-2015 the MAC is 11-30

Does their have to be a victim?

ESPN gets more content
Fans get a steady flow of games so that there is always some game on
Universities get the advertising and exposure that comes from bowl games
Coaches get more practices
Players get swag, and get to see some new places and sights
Cities get tourism
Travel agents get more business
Fans get vacations

...and, that's why these games keep proliferating.

Western Kentucky is blowing out CMU 42-14 at the half. Looks like the MAC will fall to 1-3 in bowls with Toledo a slight favorite over Arkansas State in Mobile.

I love this nonsense idea that universities get ANYTHING out of appearing in meaningless bowl games (or weekday ESPN games for that matter). The only people that care outside of current/former Bobcats are football junkies. Has anyone ever watched one of our games and thought...boy that Jovon Johnson is a great linebacker...I wonder what their Electrical Engineering program is like if they can produce a linebacker of this quality!!!!

I noticed this year that Miami's applications are up 12% from last year and they are boasting their most academically accomplished incoming class yet. They don't seem to be negatively impacted by years of awful sports teams.

As a person in business, I can tell you that one of the hardest things is to determine the value of advertising. Every name mention has value. A chance to air a full commercial, and tell a little of the "Ohio story" has even more value. The question, though, is how many people are watching? How many people are off getting a beer, or only paying a little attention? How do you know? Obviously the the value is > 0, but how much greater?

A quote that a former poster used to include as a signature comes from advertising pioneer John Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." That quote accurately reflects the difficulty of quantifying the value.

To me the wisest thing I have ever heard about advertising is that advertising is nothing more than accelerated word of mouth. If they advertise, a business with a good product will achieve success sooner and greater than if they don't, and a business with a poor product will fail faster.

I've seen many examples to prove this wisdom. I've seen businesses advertise heavily, get a lot of customers, but generate no repeat business, and fail fast. I've also seen businesses start up, advertise heavily, and go gangbusters. At the other end, I've seen businesses with a good product do no advertising, and succeed, but do so slowly and quietly, and businesses with a bad product do no advertising, and muddle along quietly for a long time before closing.

Applying that to Ohio, the name mentions, and a good ad, run along with the games will definitely generate increased national awareness of Ohio. After that, it's up to the admissions department to close the sale, and up to the faculty and administration to do the rest.

Sports is simply one way to advertise, and to increase name awareness. There are many others. Schools like M.I.T., Harvard, Yale, and U. Chicago find ways to be in the news all the time, and that accomplishes the goal as well. The place where you don't want to end up, though, is like some sleepy schools that aren't in the news much, and don't participate in sports. Those are the schools that you see slipping towards irrelevance and failure.

Advertising that is just a feel-good general message is the type least likely to be effective. Instead it should attempt to create or enhance a specific brand image. If you want to advertise the University in connection to sports, and you want to know if it is doing any good, suppose you used "Ohio University, a leader is Sports Management education". Next make a commercial that focuses solely on the sports management program, and its successes. Then, if the ads are working, you should see a significant bump in interest in that one program. Alternately you could promote Ohio/Scripps, and see if there is an impact there.

It's too bad that more fans didn't show up to see a great finish. They claimed 13,667 but that would mean there were 13,655 were sitting on the press box side of the field. Looked like WKU brought maybe a dozen people.

But, since they think the ads are worthless anyway, why should they care? ;)

Really, those were just examples. The process is:
1. Identify a competitive advantage that you wish to feature
2. Find a way to express it that is concise, catchy, and favorable
3. Figure out a way to convey that in a commercial that efficiently gets that message to viewers/listeners

The Sports Management program seems like a logical fit since most likely viewers have an interest in sports. The Scripps journalism program is another logical thing to advertise. Another idea would be to feature the 110, and talk about the Music program. There are no doubt many more ideas. The one thing to avoid is a general spot that makes Ohio sound like "just another nice university". The whole point is that, after viewing the spot, a segment of the viewers should react "now that's a program I should look into!" or "now that's a school that is doing things".

As you watch the bowls this season, watch the commercials for the various schools. Some will be general spots, that leave you with the impression "what a pretty campus", or "oh, that's nice". Others will feature some specific program, say "animal husbandry" for an Ag school. Still others will feature the school as, say, a top R&D powerhouse, leaving you the impression of a highly competent faculty.

The schools that do ads of the first type will indeed find that their ads are of limited value, while those with ads of the second type will find they get value from them. To a certain extent they can even be self-fulfilling. For example, a school that promotes their R&D may attract faculty interested in R&D, and may even attract R&D contracts.

Merry Christmas to all.