The Dispatch does NOT circulate throughout the Buckeye State.  It does have a very extensive subscription base in SEO and you can, for instance, get it delivered to your home in Athens and many of the other cities and towns in this area.  A number of families on our street have both Dispatch and Messenger boxes next to their mail boxes.  Therefore, Ohio should get more sports coverage than any other MAC school in that paper.  I still remember the front page huge headline before the BG home game a few years ago.  They would not have had a huge negative headline like that for any other MAC school, because those schools are not in their coverage area.  In essence, if it's a negative story, they seem to remember that we are in their coverage area; if it's a positive story they seem to forget.  Now, it's actually more complex than that, but that is the way it seems just looking at the results most of the time.  The old Citizen-Journal used to give Ohio much better coverage.  That now-defunct paper also circulated heavily in SEO, and as a boy I had many friends who had CJ paper routes in Athens.  I personally had a Dispatch route for a brief period of time.   

Like everyone else, I'd like to see more coverage in the Dispatch.  'Course, part of the problem is that the paper is a part owner of an alleged professional hockey team, the Blue Jackets.  Because of that, they force a whole bunch of hockey stuff in the paper on a daily basis.  By the time you're through with hockey, OSU, local high school, pro sports etc., the news hole just ain't big enough for too much else.  The Dispatch does extensive market research.  Believe it, if that research showed that increased Bobcat coverage would make money, it would be done the next day.  I also always smile when I read statements claiming coverage should be based on the fact that there are "tens of thousands of Ohio alumni" in central Ohio.  As I drove down from Columbus to the hoops game with Marietta, I looked in vain for that stream of traffic heading to Athens along with me. Perhaps one of the reasons the Dispatch doesn't run more Bobcat coverage is because most of the "tens of thousands" of alumni in the paper's coverage area really don't care.    

Of course the reason for the big screaming headline saying we lost in MAC title game and not for the bowl game is that Znidar was in Detroit. Rest assured that if we didn't have an aversion to losing MAC title games, we would have gotten the big screaming headline that some of you seem to crave far too much.

And Messenger not sending Arkley is 20 times worse than Dispatch not sending Znidar. The entire trip wouldn't have been more than $1000. Please tell me they at least got a stringer from out there and didn't rely strictly on wire copy.

Jus to add a litle more fire to this post I thought I would add the following:
Back 7 years when Frank was hired I wrote a letter to th editor asking if the paper would be increasing it's coverage of Ohio Foorball? Stein's response was non-comitale. This response was an indication to me that he was dis-interested.
While winning teams usually receive more press than lossing ones I doubt that as long as Marc Stein is the sports editor things will not change.
If we wanted to mount an all out write in campaign with hundreds of us over an extended period that might help especially if we cc'd the papers managing director




GO BOBCATS 

After reading these posts I'll stick by my "Little Man Syndrome" comment. Maybe it's because of the OS-Who? shirts that the Dispatch gives us scant coverage. I would also think that Columbus has a sizeable alumni concentration of  just about every other MAC Ohio school also. If there are statistics out there that OHIO is the proven runaway leader in Ohio alums residing in the Greater Columbus Metropolitan Area those study results have escaped me.

Is our victory of the FAMOUS Idaho Potato Bowl lessened because the Dispatch did not give us Page 1 above the fold coverage? I could really give a rat's _ss what the Dispatch does. It NATURALLY is all things OSU which in my mind would be expected. Again, what LITTLE bit of attention I pay to the Dispatch it seems to me that of the Ohio MAC schools, OHIO gets the lions share of the coverage, scant that it is.

No, you're wrong. I've never heard anyone say that Ohio should have equal time or space with the aforementioned 800 lb, bloated, annoying gorilla in a red sweater. Of course they're going to pander to their greatest readership, and on top of that, they're practically on the osu athletics payroll. However, for a paper that loves to tout itself as a statewide entity, they can at least put a little effort into regular coverage of the Bobcats. They sell their paper many places outside of columbus, and I would bet that, yes, Ohio does have more alums in C-bus than anyone besides osu. Every other MAC school has a significantly closer large city where graduates will flock after graduation.

Something to remember; there is no state university outside of Ohio State that has the amount of alums and influence in Columbus as does Ohio University. The Dispatch and everyone in the corridors of power now this, but figure if Bobcat fans aren't going to raise a stink about it, they are going to do what they want, which is back Ohio State and give us space if it sees fit.  We packed the MAC basketball tournament at the then Ohio Center (Columbus)in the 90s. If the MAC Tournament was at Nationwide this year, OU would sell out both the semi final and the championship game, not because we have such loyal alums but it would be the place to be for Bobcat alums, even if they haven't seen a game in Athens in years. This is how all bandwagons start, I am not rendering a judgement just stating a fact. 

One more thing to consider, Ohio University alums give more money to their university than any state school outside of massive Ohio State. Not even the well heeled of Miami give as much as do Bobcat alums. Miami just does a better job of making everyone think they are so much better than they really are. I am not knocking them because they have so many people convinced of their superiority, just stating the obvious. Recently I spoke to an Ohio State alum who was convinced that Miami was a private school that just blew every state school out of the water. The Redskins er Redhawks may talk a good game with their little sayings like a MIAMI MERGER (two Miami alums getting married.) However, with all of their supposed superiority they don't give more money to their school than Bobcat alums give to OU and they don't outdraw us in football or basketball even though Oxford is much closer to major populations centers than is Athens. I am not here to bash the Dispatch or Miami. However, I am here to say we need to flex our muscles a little more; page 5 doesn't cut it even if the game ended late and it is the Potato Bowl. We need to make our presense known and felt!

None of this shocks me. The combination of giving out so many free papers on campus and the counties surrounding Athens having a population of about 50 hill people mean that The Messenger probably doesn't have too much extra funding lying around. 

Secondly, it's Columbus and being around people from Columbus and watching Columbus news media for two years I came to the conclusion that they live in their own little fantasy world where only themselves and tOSU exist. Seriously, I hate almost everything about that city except for the few souls that managed to escape to Athens.

You're right, but if you look you'll see that I was referencing MAC schools in the state of Ohio.

This is what I was getting at, though I didn't have the numbers to back it up. Thanks for the stats. Where did you find these numbers?

I wonder how branch campuses figure in this equation.  Ohio Zanesville tops the 1,500 mark and Ohio Pickerington is over 500 after a few years of operation.  My Ohio Portsmouth people almost always ended up on the Athens campus for a few years......so the 17% figure may have been larger back in the 60's and 70's.....now of course OUP is Shawnee State.

You have to factor in that we are the only large university that is farther than an hour in any direction from a major population center.

You're forgetting the Parkersburg-Marietta SMSA?