Wow, thanks for the link. The NY Times did some amazing work there; or at least digging up work that others had done and summarizing it for human consumption. As I was reading through it I was constantly amazed at how much it actually lined up with the reality we are seeing. And the reality as I thought I understood it (guess I do understand it pretty well ... pats self on back). A few exceptions: Boise had a larger fan base that I was expecting; I think it surprised them too. Idaho is now a football hotbed and all eyes are glued on the Broncos. UNLV really suprised me for being in such a large city they have very few fans. Guess there are so many other things to do in Vegas nobody cares about football. In the south a couple of Florida teams surprised: USF and UCF. USF is in Tampa and UCF is in Orlando and people in Florida follow football pretty closely so there are relatively a lot of fans for schools that don't have much prestige or reputation.
But other than that it was spot on. Incredibly so. They even explain why the B1G isn't looking to expand ... they don't have too and the numbers back it up.
I would recommend that everyone look at that data because that is what is being used to slice up the pie.
Oh, there was one other surprise: Houston. We all knew Houston was not a great fit and they have a really small fan base for being in such a big city. Not sure why.
Its because it was done by Nate Silver. Huge stat guy and excellent at what he does. Started out in baseball(PECOTA if you've heard of it) before moving onto politics before the 2008 election. As you can see he sometimes deviates outside politics and when he does it's typically excellent work.