Thought this was a super awesome map from Reddit. Check out SFA..

Reddit D1 Basketball Map

Map is courtesy of u/JohnDoeMonopoly

If I get the time, or if someone else get's the chance, I might go through and find the population that our area of the map covers. Would be super interesting to know.

Thanks to u/JohnDoeMonolopy, I got the Excel file, which made calculating SFA's population quite a bit easier.

County Population
Anderson: 57,580
Angelina: 88,255
Camp: 12,682
Cass: 30,313
Cherokee: 51,542
Gregg: 124,108
Harrison: 66,746
Marion: 10,160
Morris: 12,516
Nacogdoches: 65,664
Panola: 23,766
Rusk: 53,070
Sabine: 10,368
San Augustine: 8,473
Shelby: 25,402
Smith: 222,936
Upshur: 40,603
Total: 904,184

Almost a million people in our direct footprint to the next D1 School. Our actual addressable area is larger. SMU steals some counties, like Van Zandt, Henderson, etc that from personal experience I can say that they identify much more with East Texas than they do with private Dallas Schools.

I thought this was some interesting data, especially when we start talking about how much money can SFA raise, can we ever reach the level of schools like Wichita State, etc. If I get more time, I might go through and make a list of our Mid Major idols, and then compare their direct footprint to ours.

Super cool map. I love looking at stuff like that. It would be nice to dominate the growing Tyler/Longview area. Of course big schools gravitate toward population, so we'll still have areas like San Augustine county with 8,000 people...

nacluth said:

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Super cool map. I love looking at stuff like that. It would be nice to dominate the growing Tyler/Longview area. Of course big schools gravitate toward population, so we'll still have areas like San Augustine county with 8,000 people...

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Most surprising was how small some of these counties are. Growing up in Henderson/Van Zandt, I just assumed that most rural counties were about that size 50-75k. Boy was I wrong. We should definitely reachout more to the Tyler/Longview area.

I wonder what would get people interested, we could always play a game in Rose Stadium, or maybe send the basketball team there for a scrimmage game or two. Any thoughts on how to capture some of the market?

Huge caveat, I'm not in sports marketing this is just me spit balling.

I know it sounds simplistic, but winning goes a long way. I also think the University needs to work out a local TV deal. Another thought is to record the games and post them on YouTube. Make it easy and cheap for fans to consume a winning product and you will get fans. The more eyeballs on the games, the more the businesses in that area want to advertise and be associated with the program. Many small donations are nice but if SFA wants to increase its endowments or raise money for facilities, it needs some deep pockets.

Oh, and what about naming rights for the coliseum?

Yeah I agree. Texas A&M does a weekly show called the "the pulse" on YouTube. They go behind the scenes and into the lockeroom of the past weeks event. It's similar to HBO's Hard knocks. Not a aggies fan but the content is great.



Obviously we do have the same budget and etc. but any online content would be great

sfa17 said:

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Yeah I agree. Texas A&M does a weekly show called the "the pulse" on YouTube. They go behind the scenes and into the lockeroom of the past weeks event. It's similar to HBO's Hard knocks. Not a aggies fan but the content is great.



Obviously we do have the same budget and etc. but any online content would be great

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We don't have the same budget, but the best part about online content is it takes a much smaller budget. What are the chances of getting SFA football/basketball(particularly basketball) games on a local channel. Like Tyler's channel 7 or 56? WatchESPN is nice, but it's not broadcast tv.

My wife also suggested that SFA should be the de facto standard for sending students and alumni to high schools in our footprint to provide career day info. We had so many people in my 3A school that didn't know SFA existed. It was Texas, Texas A&M( or Blinn), Texas Tech or bust. And trust me, outside of the top 5 in the class, nobody had the grades or portfolio to get into the first two.

Well I'm sure that our deal with ESPN keeps us from reproducing out games on YouTube- at least their videocast of it. We could maybe set up a stationary camera, but why send out a substandard version of yourself. I bet we would have to get permission as well to broadcast each of the games on a local station which I doubt they would allow as it takes away from their numbers. Personally I couldn't be happier with the ESPN3 content for basketball. All of our other E3 sports content has been rough, but the games done at WRJ always look great.

More good online content is definitely needed from SFA. The Sawmill is already doing great write ups and audio. It would be a big step for Isaac to move beyond phone video stuff, but if we could build this website more with sponsors and subscriptions, then this could be part of the draw too. But, SFA could step up their personal marketing game.

I'm familiar with Cox communications. It is a cable TV and high speed internet provider. Like most cable companies, they have a local channel. The GCU games are on the Cox channel in Arizona.

Who is the cable provider in SFA's footprint?

Suddenlink. Ironically I think GCU has the same deal. I remember watching one their home games on ESPN 3