Now is women’s wrestling viable? I think it will be here. .... The international fans here in the U.S. may not like or admit it, but college wrestling is the heart and soul of the sport. Breaking into that will have a huge effect on the women's market in our sport. It's why I'm not worried about fans like
@23 so far; once they are wearing Hawk colors, they'll jump on board. Wrestling is wrestling.
I cannot agree with you more
@IAChief32 that college wrestling is the heart and soul of wrestling in the United States. As many, including you, asserted here, fans root for athletes in preferred college colors. Solid observation and, although I certainly shouldn't defame you like this among our cesspool friends, very rational. But doesn't that observation lead to a conclusion exactly opposite to your projection that women's college wrestling will be viable, even at Iowa, without lawsuit settlements propping it up? Please correct me where I am wrong below or where you see a different answer relating to the inputs to viability.
1)
Attendance for Iowa Women's College Wrestling: College matchups breed excitement. Iowa vs Okie State draws. Iowa vs PSU draws. Minnesota too. But last Friday, the best team in the nation barely had 10k fans at Carver against a top 15 program. Until Glory failed to make weight, a rational expectation was to see a visiting Top 2 wrestler at 125 and a top 10 matchup at 157. As multiple people mentioned in this thread while taking umbrage with my criticism of poor fan turnout, although fans had purchased tickets, they decided not to take the time to come see the dual itself. Fans, so I read in this thread, had paid for PSU when they bought season tickets and that's that. No need to attend the actual event other than PSU. So, in relation specifically to women's college wrestling, what college opponent is going to motivate fans to attend Iowa's women's wrestling duals given that Okie State, PSU, and Minnesota have neither a current women's program nor an historical women's program. Fans who get motivated by big name university matchups more than the wrestling itself are
not going to be motivated by McKendree or King rolling into Xtreme Arena or a curtained Carver. I've seen attendance at Carver when MSU, Indiana, and Purdue come to town for men's wrestling. I'm always disappointed at the in-person atmosphere for those events (excepting, of course, when Spencer Lee ended Foley's night so promptly their freshmen year). Isn't Iowa's women's team going to be even less enticing to fans than those men's Purdue, Indiana, and Maryland non-marquee matchups? Or are you predicting that McKendree, Presbyterian, and King will excite fans at a relevant, viable level (say, my previously posited 1,000 fans for a dual)?
2)
Revenue: Without exciting matchups, whether on a wrestling basis or college-pride driven basis, there is no revenue. TV eyes are just starting to come to men's wrestling; we're a long, long way from women's college wrestling, with its freestyle rules that 2/3 (at least) of college fans don't really understand, getting TV eyes. So, in terms of viability, where is the money coming from? Just last year, Iowa's coaches were agreeing to reduced salaries. Non-revenue sports, men's and women's alike, were being cut. Iowa's athletic department is not alone. Athletic departments without sufficient revenue cut programs or, importantly here, choose not to add new revenue-draining programs. If PSU, OSU, tOSU, and Minnesota see women's college wrestling as a revenue issue, they don't sustain women's programs, which feeds right back into #1 above. Or do you see this differently?
Although one can certainly try to define viability as having good wrestlers relative to opponents or, like D-3 and Ivy League, on a participatory model basis, in a Power 5 D-1 athletic department, isn't a lack of fans and a lack of revenue the definition of a nonviable college sports program?
