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If that is how you base whether or not Mizzou is carrying KC and STL, then I can assure you, Mizzou will NEVER carry those cities. I won't speak for KC folks, but being in STL, I can guarantee you Mizzou will NEVER knock the Cardinals off their pedestal. Having said that, I don't think they need to in order to "carry" the St. Louis market.

I do not think anybody expects that just like they do not expect the Terps to carry Baltimore / DC or Rutgers to carry NYC / Philly. The issue will be how much they bump the basic carriage rate for the SEC in the state of MO. If it goes from 5 cents to 10 cents (at least in the short term) instead of 5 cents to 75 cents you see the financial difference. The folks in Austin thought the LHN would be easy money but they ran into the buzz saw of carriage rate negotiations and learned just how tough they can be.

This is why I keep pointing out that it will take many years to build out MO as a SEC state and possibly a generation. Just as kids born in Texas last year will grow up knowing TAMU as only a SEC school it will take time before they reach recruiting age (15 + years) and more importantly donor age (30 + years) to achieve optimal penetration numbers in the state of MO. This is why cultural fit was so easy for South Carolina when they joined. The Cocks had a shared history with the old SIAA and SoCon plus they had been playing SEC teams throughout their sports history. If TAMU did not have the common history with Alabama (coaches), LSU (games) and Arkansas (SWC) it would have been tougher sledding for acceptance.

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Despite other schools labelling Mizzou as a basketball school, we are not a basketball school. We have had a solid basketball program, but I'd hardly call us a basketball school.

Either all the Mizzou bloggers on the Rant (and other blogs) are not real Mizzou fans or you are not reading what has been written with an objective eye.

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I think there are many factors that went into attendance at Rupp, one being that no one ever really identified with this team as they were made up mostly of transfers who were here only 1 year. Expectations for this past year's team were also very guarded.

Sadly we are in the age of one and done and nobody expected Mizzou to be the number 1 draw at Rupp. The issue was that (16) NC A&T, (14) Davidson, (8) CSU, and (11) Bucknell all drew substantially larger fans than (9) Missouri who was closer and bigger than any of these schools. Again, I did not expect Mizzou to out draw (6) Butler, (3) Marquette, or (1) Louisville but the Colorado State folks travelled farther and better than Mizzou by a wide margin.

As stated in a previous post I went to see the Antlers in action and was disappointed in what I saw at the game. As a long time SEC fan I was embarrassed by the apathy of a fellow SEC school. Especially as it was their first year of membership and you would think fans would have travelled better to a fellow SEC city. I travel even when a team is bad just to know the routine when they are good. I can think of many trips where I got lodging or better lodging because of a previous trip that allowed scouting.

From a live interaction the TAMU fans have been much friendlier than the Mizzou folks. The Tigers I met in Rupp were more abrasive yankee types than the souther fans I keep hearing about on the Rant. Granted it was a small sample size but they were more like B1G fans than SEC ones. I am not sure about the Tiger fans @ Hawkins as they have the same colors so harder to pick out in a crowd. I was hoping to get to Columbia for the UGA game to scout for future trips but it fell through.