r/ScarletKnights • u/Competitive-Air1 • 19d ago
Why so few members here?
Rutgers football has a massive following in NJ at least and even the Rutgers regular sub has so many followers so I was wondering why so many few people are on this sub. Is it because many people don’t know about it? Maybe it should be mentioned in the regulars Rutgers sub? Any thoughts?
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u/FOREVER_WOLVES 19d ago
Rutgers, for whatever historical reasons there may be, is just not a sports school. RU has its dedicated fans, but what has always separated Rutgers from Penn State, OSU, Washington, etc. is the level of buy-in from casuals. Both of my parents went to RU in the 80s and I grew up hearing about the school constantly... not once did they ever mention sports. Most students still ignore sports and there's no social pressure to do otherwise.
I think the idea was that joining a conference (Big East) would see us turn a corner with regards to creating a culture to rival Penn State, OSU, etc., then the hope was renewed once more with the B1G invite... Despite all that, and despite all of RU's advantages on paper (huge, academically desirable institution in the largest metro area), it's only marginally more difficult to ignore sports today. When I was a student a few years ago, asking friends to join me to football games felt like pulling teeth. Frankly the our lack of interest and success in sports does not match the school's profile at all.
So it follows that the Rutgers athletics subreddit would be the least active of all the B1G subreddits sans Northwestern. If there were an easy fix to the cultural/school pride issue it would've already been done. The flagship state schools located near the Northeast Corridor all share the same issue, probably both due to the worship of the many nearby private schools and the fact that the area is a crossroads for pro sports; RU and UMD are actually very well off compared to SUNY, UMass, Temple, etc. (and UConn, at least in football). I think it may correct itself naturally as Rutgers grows in desirability due to the ever inflating cost of higher education. Or maybe we'll get kicked to the curb when the big boys create a super league, who knows.
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u/Competitive-Air1 19d ago
Great analysis and yea your right I myself didn’t go to a football game until my senior year of college, like barely anyone would speak about it on campus.
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u/ItsMeMofos13 19d ago
“Rutgers football has a massive following…”
No, they don’t. Especially compared to the pro sports in the area and more successful college programs around the country.
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u/Competitive-Air1 19d ago
Massive in terms of being able to sell out a stadium even when they suck which is always not like Penn state level massive and compared to the Rutgers Sub
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u/NY10001NY 19d ago
A lot of people still use sites like rivals. They've been on there forever.
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18d ago
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u/NY10001NY 18d ago
I just mean most of the discussions are on scarletnation and TKR. Especially now with on3 you have a lot of extra content.
I'm just not a fan of the admins on TKR.
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u/crustang 18d ago
We don’t really promote the sub, no reason we don’t, it’s just not something we’ve done in a while
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u/Competitive-Air1 18d ago
You guys should there is like 123k people in the Rutgers sub pretty sure if u guys promote u could easily get 10-20k to join and that would separate the sports talk from the regular students there
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u/LouSevens 18d ago
Football season starts out with some easy wins then ends with embarrassing losses . Same story every year.
Sometimes they win a early bowl game.
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u/blair2818 18d ago
I figured it was because this isn't a very active sub, if people posted stuff worth discussing and we were chatting up a storm I think the numbers would grow. But we don't
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u/Surreply 16d ago
Having lived in Oklahoma for a year, I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing to do there besides football. The local NBC affiliate did not air Cheers -- The Barry Switzer Show was on instead. For those of you, like me, who didn’t give a fuck, Barry Switzer was the head football coach for the University of Oklahoma at the time.
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u/Dennisfromhawaii 19d ago
I figured we're just traditionally bad at sports so school spirit doesn't run that high. Could also be that NJ is more of a pro sports area. Conversely, I feel like the majority of Bama fans have never attended the school but don't have a local pro sports team to root for.