Purdue Sports: Yahoo Names Purdue Fans the Worst

Yahoo, don’t you pick this fight.*

Purdue fans are not the worse. Are we disgruntled? Sure. The worst? Not even close.

Listen, Yahoo, we deserve to be as disgruntled as we want to be. We went through the Danny Hope and Darrell Hazell eras of football, both dark times in Purdue Football history. Really, we would love for them to be wiped away forever.

For basketball, we have had a couple of teams in the past decade that have been final four worthy. But, injuries plagued those seasons, thinking of Robbie Hummel and Isaac Haas. So, yes, we can be disgruntled, again, not the worst.

I can name a few fan bases that act much worse than us. Who have essentially run coaches out of town. I can proudly say that we have never done that. We give coaches chances before we get upset. We lived through an era where the only power five team was Illinois.

Boilermakers continue to show up every year, in both football and basketball. Year in and year out, we are listed as one of the toughest environments to play in with basketball. That is a hat tip to the fan base, who regularly sell out Mackey Arena. But, we are just so damn bad, huh, Yahoo?

As for football, year one, Purdue football fans came back out in full force. As our lowest attendance for 2017 was still higher than our highest attendance in 2016 under Hazell. Sure, we expect success, but what fan base does not? Ball State? Kansas?

If Jay Busbee wants to pick this fight with out fan base so be it. But have something to back it with. Do not just list us as the worst in the nation without even explaining the reasoning why. That just makes no sense. Here is a quote from his article.

“Who’s at the bottom of the pack?

At the other end of the rankings of the Power Five conferences, you can probably guess some of the names. Counting down to the worst, we have:

5. Miami

4. Virginia

3. Rutgers

2. West Virginia

1. Purdue

“While winning is probably the key to developing a fan base, the factors that result in a less engaged fan base can vary,” Lewis notes. “Too much competition? The weather is too nice? It’s a pro town?”

As for Miami, which would seem to rank a lot higher based on past performance, Lewis has an answer: “Miami is a storied program, but Miami’s reported football revenues are nowhere what would be expected based solely on the team’s history of major bowl games,” he says. “And this is the key. We are not looking at team success. We are focused on marketplace metrics relative to team success and investment.”

Bottom line, you can’t measure passion like you do wins and losses. But you can measure revenue and its impacts, and from that standpoint — and, really, only that standpoint — Alabama doesn’t rule college football.”

Great explanation, guy. Next time you want to do a ranking, come in with some factual evidence, some statistics, some something. Because your opinion doesn’t matter to the best damn fan base in the nation. Boiler Up.

*Editor's note: technically, Yahoo was just sharing the original metric done by some professor at Emory University. But sometimes the messenger deserves to be shot.