Gundy squashes another BYU fan claim

[BD]

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard from BYU fans that “nobody cares about Utah”.

Well Gundy squashes that low-IQ cougarboard nonsense saying that having Utah on the schedule is one of the reasons season tickets sold out so quickly.

Haha. Love it!

Oklahoma Sate coach Mike Gundy on facing Utah this week:

"I think that this game is one of the reasons that we sold out (season tickets) so quick, in my opinion. Utah brings in a long history of success." pic.twitter.com/eSZMSMMxtV

— Joe Coles (@JoeAColes) September 16, 2024

[Dallas]

I listened to his whole interview, and it’s hard to dislike that guy.

[Central Coast Ute]

Other than the comment about how DUI isn’t a big deal and he does it all of the time he made a few weeks ago. I could see how someone who has been affected by a dui driver wouldn’t like him.

[Dallas]

What strikes me most about him (from the very few interviews I’ve seen) is his trustworthiness, meaning you can trust what he says as his honest opinion, which was reinforced by his dumb dui comment. That takes balls to do in today’s atmosphere especially in an “educational” environment. And frankly, not knowing his history, his 20 year tenure seems more impressive considering it.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Also wrecks their oft repeated claims that “nobody had even heard of Utah”.

[ProudUte]

Utah had 19,000 fans in Gainsville in 2022. According to the local radio station – that was the largest number of opposing fans for a Florida game except FSU. Cb likes to say that Utah does not travel well. That’s a joke.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Face it if BYU wasn’t a church owned school and depended on Provo and surrounding area for support they would still be independent or in the mountain west.

Yes they have their hard core base of students and locals but the fact the LDS religion is world wide gives them a much larger fan base.

BYU football has had no respect nationally since they went independent period. Like most other teams Utahs fan base is local with a few scattered alumni and a large LDS population that take away from the local support.

My point being Whitt and the program have earned their respect and have made a name for themselves by their play on the field and not by affiliation. BYU has a huge advantage with national TV audiences and yet Utah has more viewers. Nobody cares about BYU but the church members.

[BD]

There is probably some truth to this, but I believe this “worldwide” following by members of the church is way overstated. My guess is that the large majority of members of the church might consider themselves BYU “fans”, but probably not loyal BYU sports followers, but are more “supporters” of BYU the institution, thus not really making them BYU “fans”.

To illustrate with an actual example, I work on a team of software engineers where 4 are BYU fans that attended BYU, and 4 are BYU-Idaho graduates, with a few Ute fans. The BYU engineers are all good to work with, and I have no problems with any of them. But there is a very noticeable difference in “fan” loyalty to BYU sports between the BYU graduates, and the BYU-Idaho graduates. I have personally asked each BYU-I graduate what loyalty they have to BYU sports, and their answer for all of them is similar to the following:

“I graduated from BYU-I, so therefore I am a “fan”, but I don’t really care about what the football or basketball team does.”

So they really don’t even follow BYU sports. And these are BYU-I graduates – they at least have an affiliation with BYU.

My guess is that the vast majority of church members have similar thoughts and feelings about BYU sports. I imagine that some church member in some town in Kentucky, or Germany, or Australia probably doesn’t care one bit about BYU sports, but might consider themselves a “fan”, or more accurately, a supporter of BYU just because they are members of the church.

Here is a report that lists estimates of fan sizes:

College Fan Sizes

It lists Notre Dame at 8.21 million fans. Sure the Catholic church is a big reason why there are so many Notre Dame fans. But, there are over 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide, and if there are just over 8 million Notre Dame fans, then the estimates are obviously not including the vast majority of Catholics as Notre Dame fans.

With this Notre Dame logic, I don’t think we should grant the 17 million members of the church automatically as BYU fans. Sure, some numbers need to be included in the BYU fanbase from the church membership, but nowhere near what Cougarboard will say.

[ALUF]

I graduated from BYU-I, it’s actually a very diverse mixed bag of fandoms for college sports. It seemed like there were quite a few ute fans, myself included. Lots of boise fans, of course byu, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Michigan etc. kind of surprising. We all joked that byu and byu-i are the same just like how Utah and Utah state are the same.

[PlainsUte]

I was raised Catholic in the Midwest. I was never a Notre Dame fan, in fact my parents went to another Catholic university that was local, so we were fans of that school. Notre Dame was just another team on the schedule, they had more affinity toward other schools that were run by the Jesuit priests (.e.g., St Louis, Creighton, Marquette, Gonzaga, Georgetown) over ND (Congregation of the Holy Cross). I had teachers in school and some friends that were ND fans, but usually it was because they or their parents had attended there.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Nice post BD. Very well stated. Of the 17 million members worldwide they still have a number of viewers to bolster their tv audience especially if they are playing on the road against a team that has a large LDS population in that city. Tv viewing is still an advantage even if those team by church affiliation only watch a couple games a year.

[Central Coast Ute]

This is spot on. In my ward in SoCal, most people who care about college sports say they are BYU fans, but that isn’t a lot of people. Myself and a couple of other guys are Utah fans, but we were all born and raised in Utah. The rest are all USC fans. Even outside of Utah, byu doesn’t have a monopoly on LDS college sports fans.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

“…but the fact the LDS religion is world wide gives them a much larger fan base.”

Actually, the fact is, they don’t. There’ve been some common misconceptions that’s been perpetuated by TSPP:

(1) That “LDS” = “ybu-p fan”
(2) That “worldwide religion” = “worldwide fan base”

The last estimated “fan” count listed the Big 12’s fan base as such…

1. Ariz St – 1.95M
2. WVU – 1.84M
3. Tx Tech – 1.65M
4. Okla St – 1.42M
5. Utah – 1.09M
6. Ariz – 1.04M
7. ybu-p – 1.03M
8. Colo – 0.95M

So not only is ybu-p’s fan base NOT “much larger”, it’s not even “larger”.

That fan count estimate was done back in 2022, so there’s a good chance (and good evidence for) Colorado’s fan base had grown, but there’s nothing indicating that TSPP had passed Utah in any way.

There’s a reason why Utah consistently produces higher television ratings. We have the bigger “brand”, and consequently, the larger fan base.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Utah rates higher because viewers want to watch Utah play reguardless of fan base. BYU is lower because nobody outside their fan base and church affiliation want to see them play. Point is their viewership is still an advantage with church affiliation.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

The point is, there’s no evidence that TSPP has “a much larger fan base” than Utah as you’d suggested.

There is some evidence to the contrary though.

[PlainsUte]

He also said that he didn’t really know Coach Whittingham personally but the Utes are a team he had followed, even when the Utes were not in the same conference, because he likes to pay attention to teams that get the most out of their players — the ones that are successful without getting the high-end recruits like those teams that have 6-7 players drafted in the NFL every year.

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