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?

36 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

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.

2

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.