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Hypothetical Annual BBall Game

M

Mr. Tibbs

New member
This is my first post here at Wyonation, so I thought I'd start off with a curiosity based question for the posters here. I apologize if this has been discussed before.

If there were to be an annual game in Rapid City, SD against South Dakota State, A) Would you as a fan have interest in this matchup? B) Would you as a fan travel and pay to watch this game more years than not? C) Do you think that the Cowboys would have good fan support at the game in general (2000-4000 fans at the game being very good attendance)?

I ask because I am a student at SDSU and this is an idea I've had for a while and I am curious if Wyoming fans would see any interest in an annual matchup of this kind. These are the specifications that seemed to be the only way this could ever happen:
1) Play the game before Christmas, but after finals are over for each school. This would allow for students who live in the areas surrounding to be that much closer to the game, in addition to k-12 schools also being on break.
2) Create a trophy for the game, to hopefully create more interest and fan support.
3) Play the game in the Rushmore civic plaza (capacity 10,000).
4) Try to get a national carrier such as Fox or ESPN to carry the game. If it were played at the right date, no bowl games would be competing for tv time. This probably wouldn't happen, but they've certainly televised less intriguing matchups in December.

The idea behind this thought is that the area around Rapid does not have a natural fan base built into it. If people care about college athletics in that area, it tends to be about BHSU or SDSMT. That being said, there are many Western SD students at SDSU (from what I've heard, many more than USD), and most of them live within 1 hour of Rapid. Then of course, there are obviously towns such as Casper, Sheridan, and Gillette that have UW ties.

Both universities share many similarities in size, academic scope, and contributions to both states as land grant universities. Both are roughly the same distance from Rapid city too, and both have alumni all over each state. As far as basketball goes, in recent history, I see no reason why SDSU would be looked at as a "down" game. The school hasn't been DII for ten years now (in DII, SDSU had a long history of BBall success), has made back to back NCAA appearances, upset teams such as New Mexico (2013 MWC champ), and has a very dedicated fan following in the state.

I realize something like this is probably not going to happen, but it certainly won't ever happen if there is no interest in it. So I'll ask my question again: From the perspective of a Wyoming fan, what is the interest level in an annual "rivalry" game with SDSU played in Rapid City every December.
 
This actually happened this year, only with USD instead of SDSU. Attendance was about 3,500 and it was broadcast on a network we don't have in WY, but I think you have in most of South Dakota (Midco Sports or something similar, don't quote me).

SDSU would be better than USD (better team, more fans, etc.), but I just have bad vibes from the game this year (Pokes played awful and barely won).

The game this year was part of an in-season home and home with USD with one game in Laramie and one game in Rapid.


In the past Wyoming has had a somewhat similar arrangement with Montana State where we used to alternate between "neutral" sites at locations in each state (Casper for Wyoming, Billings for Montana State). I would say interest was modest at best.

P.S. Nate Wolters was awesome. That is all.
 
Mr. Tibbs said:
This is my first post here at Wyonation, so I thought I'd start off with a curiosity based question for the posters here. I apologize if this has been discussed before.

If there were to be an annual game in Rapid City, SD against South Dakota State, A) Would you as a fan have interest in this matchup? B) Would you as a fan travel and pay to watch this game more years than not? C) Do you think that the Cowboys would have good fan support at the game in general (2000-4000 fans at the game being very good attendance)?

I ask because I am a student at SDSU and this is an idea I've had for a while and I am curious if Wyoming fans would see any interest in an annual matchup of this kind. These are the specifications that seemed to be the only way this could ever happen:
1) Play the game before Christmas, but after finals are over for each school. This would allow for students who live in the areas surrounding to be that much closer to the game, in addition to k-12 schools also being on break.
2) Create a trophy for the game, to hopefully create more interest and fan support.
3) Play the game in the Rushmore civic plaza (capacity 10,000).
4) Try to get a national carrier such as Fox or ESPN to carry the game. If it were played at the right date, no bowl games would be competing for tv time. This probably wouldn't happen, but they've certainly televised less intriguing matchups in December.

The idea behind this thought is that the area around Rapid does not have a natural fan base built into it. If people care about college athletics in that area, it tends to be about BHSU or SDSMT. That being said, there are many Western SD students at SDSU (from what I've heard, many more than USD), and most of them live within 1 hour of Rapid. Then of course, there are obviously towns such as Casper, Sheridan, and Gillette that have UW ties.

Both universities share many similarities in size, academic scope, and contributions to both states as land grant universities. Both are roughly the same distance from Rapid city too, and both have alumni all over each state. As far as basketball goes, in recent history, I see no reason why SDSU would be looked at as a "down" game. The school hasn't been DII for ten years now (in DII, SDSU had a long history of BBall success), has made back to back NCAA appearances, upset teams such as New Mexico (2013 MWC champ), and has a very dedicated fan following in the state.

I realize something like this is probably not going to happen, but it certainly won't ever happen if there is no interest in it. So I'll ask my question again: From the perspective of a Wyoming fan, what is the interest level in an annual "rivalry" game with SDSU played in Rapid City every December.
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There's no national interest in this game and trying to create an out of conference rival would be difficult. No offense, but Wyoming wouldn't want to create an annual game to a team of "lesser value" per-say. Not saying SDSU isn't worth a shit, but they hardly have any clout. Not worth the risk of loss.. The ROI is low.
 
I'm not convinced Wyo has anything to gain in that series. No offense, but we need to be looking for bigger fish to fry than South Dakota State.

In order for our program to continue on it's upward trajectory, we need to play teams that will boost our reputation, not create an ooc "rivalry" that no one would really care for. Would it be a more local game for some of our fans in NE Wyo? Yes. Would it be an exciting game that would help build our fan base? Not so sure. We couldn't get more than 6K to attend a game where we beat the 5th ranked team in the country. Playing and beating up (which is what we should do...and may not necessarily be what we would do) isn't likely to catch the attention of the national media (for recruiting purposes and to help our NCAA potential) or casual fans.
 
kdwrightuwyo said:
I'm not convinced Wyo has anything to gain in that series. No offense, but we need to be looking for bigger fish to fry than South Dakota State.
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You're right, but I can't help but to notice this. If a Nebraska fan were to say this exact same sentence about Wyoming, we would all be up in arms about it, haha.
 
Don't think i'd travel all the way to Rapid, but I would be all in favor of having a smaller Casper event over the holidays like they did with the Shootout, it was well received I thought
 
One other thing I think in non conf we should play a school from each of the schools we border the state with
 
The OP is talking about starting up and creating a rivalry series out of nowhere. Between UW, a school with some NCAA history and a program on the rise, and South Dakota state, who really isn't. For SDSU, scheduling UW is a step up and a good game. For Wyo, it's a step down, or lateral at best, when we need to schedule schools with bigger names. I'm not opposed to a one or two game series with SoDak State, but we can't/shouldn't try to create a series with a school that no one would care about.

There have been a few pipe dreamers on here that think we need to be in a rivalry game with NU...but I don't think that would/should happen, or talked about, until we're on the same level as NU.
 
I think a game like that in Rapid would be fun and I think many Poke fans would go because of Deadwood. Weather is always going to be a challenge for travel. No TV is going to be interested, but it's always nice to play a regional game, whether it's Montana, Northern Colorado, SDSU, etc.
 
stymeman said:
Don't think i'd travel all the way to Rapid, but I would be all in favor of having a smaller Casper event over the holidays like they did with the Shootout, it was well received I thought
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I second this big time since I'm from Casper and proud of it too.

Besides, I miss the Shootout. Volunteered at the 1990 event.
 
I don't think this is a bad idea at all. SDSU is the caliber of school that Shyatt likes to schedule during OOC. They've got a recent NCAA Tournament appearance, they're a regional school, and it's close to an area of the state who's population has a hard time getting to a lot of games in Laramie. Selling it as a rivalry isn't going to happen overnight, and I don't think it would get televised on anything better than ESPN3/ESPNU for the first couple of meetings, but it does have all the ingredients to be a good annual rivalry that could draw some attention, especially if both programs stay on the rise.
 
stymeman said:
a game with NU would help in only one way, when/if we beat a Big 10 school
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IF?? I certainly hope we could beat Nebraska, the would be fighting for the 3rd/4th place sports if they were in the MWC, IMO.
 
I think it would need to rotate each year to casper... Wyoming and Montana State used to do it called it the border war... One year in casper the next In Billings and it was awesome!! As a kid in Billings I loved it!
 
I probably would not make the trip, but I had several friends at UW who grew up around Rapid City.

I personally think that we need more of these annual games against neighboring schools that could develop into a rivalry. They are certainly better than Jackson State or something like that. I would love to cement the Colorado game and get Nebraska on the schedule along with the major schools from South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Utah.

I did not even mind the games against BHSU and Chadron State because of the overlap with those schools on where we draw students from. You will even find BHSU and Chadron State students who are Cowboys fans in the same way that we see Nebraska and CU fans at UW.

I bet UW even hopes to get the best and brightest graduates from schools like SDSU, USD, BHSU, and Chadron to do graduate work at UW.
 
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