Does the Big Ten have better football fans than the Pac-12? Originally answered on Nov. 30th, 2015
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Answer by Bryant Gomer, Michigan football season ticket holder:
Since I've lived in Michigan for the past two years after growing up in California for twenty-six, it is clear that the vast majority of Michiganders must make a choice: whether to Go Blue or to Go Green (and white). With a significant other at Michigan Law, that choice was easy, and I can be seen on most fall Saturdays clapping my hands and jumping up and down at the Big House next to a 6'6, 26 year old yellow Teletubby.
Let's compare Berkeley, CA with Ann Arbor, MI. Two cities with roughly 115,000 people. Two cities with highly visible public universities that possess significant influence in their states as well as significant budgets for their college athletic programs. Walk up to a typical Berkeley resident on an October Saturday morning at 10 AM and ask them what their plans are. Here is a list of some possible answers that I personally have taken part in:
- Peruse the local farmer's market
- Brunch on Solano Ave.
- Brunch on Shattuck Ave. (Or any other half dozen streets with brunch spots in Berkeley.)
- Brunch in Oakland, perhaps a picnic on Lake Merritt.
- Brunch in San Francisco (by now you should realize that Californians are obsessed with the concept of sleeping in and eating and drinking overpriced cheap champagne from 10 AM - dinner.)
- Visiting book stores and coffee shops.
- Working on your or your friend's urban garden.
- Watch the Cal game.
- Continue tailgating (since we started at 7 AM) and head to the Big House for the Michigan game at noon.
- Watching the Michigan game at a family member's house.
- Watching the Michigan game at friend's house.
- Hustling back from the farmer's market to go to the Michigan game.
While I cannot speak from experience about all of the states that make up the Pac-12 or the Big 10, I can provide a direct comparison between California and Michigan. Growing up in California for 26 years with significant time spent in both the southern and northern parts of the state, I was never expected to pledge loyalty to a college football program. My parents did not attend any of the California universities with major football programs so interest my interest in Cal, Stanford, USC, or UCLA was pretty minimal growing up. In high school, my friends and I were never locked into Pac-12 games on Saturday despite being huge sports fans. On the other hand, some of the biggest University of Michigan fans I know are friends living in Detroit with zero alumni in the family, yet the father bleeds Maize and Blue.
College football consumes the state of Michigan in a passionate way that average California residents and California college football fans simply do not feel during the fall (let alone the whole year because January and February in Ann Arbor is when you break down recruiting outlooks). Amongst the papers, the news, the billboards, and casual conversations, there is no escaping the next Michigan or Michigan State football game. I have taught in both middle schools and high schools in Ann Arbor and the students are constantly talking about Harbaugh and the Michigan game. Half the kids are in Michigan or State sweatshirts. I previously taught high school in Richmond, CA, a 5-10 minute drive from Berkeley, and my students rarely, if ever, showed any interest in Cal football.
Last Saturday [as of the time of this writing] Cal beat Arizona State in a thrilling game between two Pac-12 teams. Cal is having one of its best seasons in the last 5 years led by Jared Goff, who is expected to be one of the first quarterbacks drafted in next year's NFL draft. However, Cal's stadium only looked half full in a venue that seats 63,000. Now, this game was played in unimaginable temperatures (in the 30s), so I'm guessing low attendance was in part due to the cold. I recently attended a Michigan game in 30-degree weather against, to be kind, a struggling Rutgers football team in front of 110,000 fans packed into the Big House. And yes, my friend still was wearing his Teletubby suit.
Are Michigan fans better than California fans? That's all a matter of opinion of how you define fandom, but I can say with confidence that college football means more to an average Michigan resident than it does to your average Californian. Now excuse me, I need to put on my snow boots to head to the farmer's market.
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