The danger for Iowa--apparently embraced by Barta as athletic department fundraiser-in-chief--is pricing too many fans out of the market. By opening the doors to more affordable ticket pricing, ISU is winning new fans and filling seats--growing its fan base. They seem especially focused on young fans ... the future.
My concern is that Barta has taken Iowa's fan base for granted, as if Iowa will always be on top because, well, it's Iowa. Some fans think this way, too, without realizing that Ames' proximity to a fast-growing Des Moines is a huge advantage that could well shift the balance in-state. One could say it's already shifting, and rather rapidly with strong coaching hires, a sturdy and largely successful basketball program, and as a last piece of their long-term growth plan, football. They are being helped immensely by fawning coverage from the Des Moines Register and other central Iowa media outlets. Iowa now plays second fiddle in this regard.
Barta's "don't screw it up" regime lacks imagination and appears to have little by way of strategic planning, outside of revenues and new facilities. This almost singular focus on growing revenues--fan support be damned--has the strong potential of slowly winnowing away base-level fans who cannot afford, or choose not to afford, actual game attendance. Watching TV and listening to radio broadcasts do not really involve much buy-in from a fan support perspective and leave open the chance to flip channels and begin paying more attention to the other in-state program, especially when it does better than your own.
This ISU growth trend is not entirely Barta's fault and may be inevitable, given the shifting dynamics of our state's population and the growing disinterest in liberal arts education (I still recall the rather snobbish "Iowa Culture vs. Iowa State Agriculture" mantra in the build-up to the game that renewed the Iowa-ISU football series; no one really thinks in those terms any more). For instance, ISU has out-enrolled Iowa for a few years now and that trend may not change. Meanwhile, maybe Iowa continues being the "fat cat" athletic department even though it can't sustain historical levels of fan support and can only survive by enjoying the fruits of superior TV revenues. Fine, so long as those revenues continue to be superior and some level of competitive success is enjoyed on the playing field.
But what we've seen lately in terms of poor basketball performance and largely mediocre football performance only opens the door even wider for ISU. The powers that be in Ames are more than ready to fill the gap and essentially, in their view, do to Iowa what Iowa did to them for such a very long time. Little Brother is growing up.
