being drawn. For 2009 that's very good road attendance for Utah and does show it being in their favor but it only gives you a brief reflection of that single point in time and not a broader understanding if that's an actual pattern or just a momentary trend.

Utah was fresh off of their SUgar Bowl season and a lot of sports announcers, teams and fans viewed it skeptically as a fluke season with squeaker wins over some bad teams (ex Michigan which lost to a lousy Toledo team at home or the TCU kicker missing two extremely easy FG's, Alabama was so despondent after the heartbreaking loss to Florida that to them playing in the Sugar Bowl was like a consolation game compared to playing in the National Championship game, etc) and were eager to see them get brought down to earth. I'd bet that looking at other seasons you'd get a different view (like 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006 or 2007).

In his example he talked about common OOC opponents and that helps paint a more accurate picture but to know if it's just a flash in the pan trend or a definite pattern you need to look at a longer period of time (out of fairness that calls into question the comparison between utah's visit to UCLA in 2006 and BYU's visit in 2007 as just a snapshot).

The problem Utah has in this area of broad fan appeal, is their success to the average fan around the country is like straw fire, if came out of nowhere, flashed momentarily and then faded away just as quickly. They had a second flare up in 2008 and then have began to fade again so they don't have the tradition or history to have broad national appeal. Also, the typical student who attends Utah is from Utah and then generally when graduated settles in Utah. The typical student at BYU comes from outside of BYU and then when graduating moves back to the region they grew up in or somewhere close by. Plus wherever the LDS Church has a base the majority of those people will be BYU fans and when they find out that BYU is playing their home university will come out of the woodwork to attend the game, whether it's a good BYU team or a bad one, because it's such a rare occasion.

Because of these BYU fans consumer demographics, it makes them a more attractive audience because they're spread out over every market, not just the local SLC/Provo/Orem market. Network ratings are based off of small samples scattered throughout the entire country. This favors BYU and hinders Utah.