Are there Buckeye fans in Cinicinnati?

[max venable]

Here's a column from bucknuts.com I thought 'zoners might find interesting:

What's The Matter With Cincinnati?

Why is there a perceived lack of love for OSU in the Cincinnati area? The Buckeyes don't seem to get the coverage in Cincy that they do elsewhere in the state. In his latest opinion column, Ramzy gives some thoughts as to why that may be the case.

Southwest Ohio is aesthetically beautiful, with its rolling hills, riverfront area and mountains of shredded cheese upon the greatest culinary contribution in our illustrious state’s history. Like all metropolitan areas, the Nati has its warts – apparently, six inches of snow falling out of the sky, while customary, is accepted as a cataclysmic, earth-shattering outlier event, shutting down the entire local economy, all roads and most schools in the greater Cincinnati area.

Throughout the rest of the state, Cincinnati is notoriously reputed to be anti-Ohio State, and closer in heritage and similarities to our tobacco-chewing horse-loving neighbors to the south. The legions of Buckeye fans, contrary to popular belief, are actually quite thick down here. Sure there are rabid Xavier and UC fans, and understandably so. The Notre Dame subway alumni epidemic took hold and rooted here long ago, as innocent Catholics were somehow convinced it was their moral obligation to support the Fighting Irish, which as we all know only recruits and accepts practicing Catholics for its football team. There are noticeable pockets of resentment and unrestrained loathing for all things Ohio State, but you’ll even run into people like that in Columbus.

Then why is it that the Queen City has such a rotten reputation for supporting the Buckeyes? You only really need one finger to point at the culprit – the media – but we’ll give the primary perpetrator a special separate finger of recognition:

Enemy of the State: Cincinnati Enquirer

All perceptions begin and end with the media, and the flagship paper of Porkopolis would love for you to believe that there is no market and only passing interest in Ohio State sports, especially football. Understandably, during the football season the Bengals take the top spot in the sports section on Sundays, but who else has gotten higher billing recently than the Buckeyes, who were the top ranked team throughout the past season? One week it was a puff piece on some water polo team (seriously). Another week, a redundant discussion of high school football in a veritable repeat of the Saturday paper. The attention to detail is lacking as well – Doug Datish received credit for a sack in photo that was shockingly used in covering the opening game against NIU. The very same Doug Datish who does not play on the defensive side of the ball, ever, and who has never resembled anyone of African-American heritage. Sure, he wore #50 just like Vernon Gholston – who happens to match that description far better than Datish, but who has time to glance at the box score or a roster?

This past December when the bowl game matchups were announced, there was a special feature on former local area football players who would be playing, for what team and in which game throughout the bowl season. The high school football in SW Ohio is excellent, and as expected the list of area players was impressive. It did not include any players from Ohio State’s roster, not because there weren’t any on the team – there are actually several, but just because, apparently, the Enquirer decided not to include Ohio State in its list of teams playing in bowl games. The absence of Ohio State players on the list – especially as they were playing in the biggest bowl game of all – was glaring, if not pathetic.

Enemy of the State: All of the rest of the Cincinnati media

This past basketball season, Ohio State was hosting Purdue in a game that would give the Buckeyes the unshared Big Ten championship. If you had regular Time Warner cable, the game was nowhere to be found. However, you could watch the Kentucky/Tennessee game at the same time…on three different channels. Cincinnati is equidistant to both Lexington and Columbus. Columbus, if you’re not currently in front of a math, is the one in Ohio. Of course there are both UK and Ohio State fans living down here. Of course both of their games should rank behind UC and Xavier’s in terms of local importance. However, there is no reason for any game to ever be on in triplicate. That happens enough with presidential speeches and breaking "news" alerts of missing blonde teenagers in Cancun. When it comes to the priority placed on covering the teams from Ohio’s flagship university, the media likes to move the border of the state from the river a couple dozen miles north to I-275, not only when it comes to covering the news but also when it comes to actually showing the game.

Local news is barely watchable anywhere in America, but you’d think at least get some peripheral bandwagon coverage for Ohio State, with top five teams in football and basketball over the past year. Yeah, forget about it. Is it just residual childish bitterness toward Thad Matta leaving Xavier for Ohio State (which in Cincinnati, was seen by many as an incomprehensibly poor career move) or perhaps is the perception that nobody cares really true? Just based on my unscientific sampling – bars, proprietors of chicken wings, flags in front of houses, conversations with startled strangers at stoplights – the people are somewhat interested. There is a market for this information in Greater Cincinnati. And for competent snow removal – and the people would benefit from both.

The misconception that Cincinnati is not supportive of Ohio State sports can be fixed, and it wouldn’t even require a dramatic culture change or gradual shift in mindset across the area. It would only necessitate a couple of warm bodies with rank in the media to first recognize that Ohio State football and basketball are not a distant rumor, and then act on it. In Columbus, the Browns and Bengals get equal billing. A nice start for the Enquirer might be to give the Buckeyes similar coverage during the football season to, for example, an arbitrary water polo team. You never know, they might sell more papers.

LINK

Okay...I grew up in Cincinnati. I lived literally five minutes from Riverfront Stadium. I truly am a die-hard Reds fan. But I also grew up rooting for the Buckeyes. And I must admit...I was in the minority. Oh, there were other Buckeye fans around...but it didn't seem like there were a ton of us. I never could figure it. From my perspective, OSU was the STATE school. I mean, that team, to me, represented the state I was born and raised in. How could I not cheer for the Buckeyes? UK was huge (basketball--nobody cared about UK football...do they even have a team?). I guess I get that. I mean, for all intents and purposes, half of Cincinnati is on the south side of the river. But I could never bring myself to root for them...I had no allegiance. Afterall, that's KENTUCKY'S team. OHIO has a different team...I didn't live in Kentucky...I lived in OHIO!

Now I live in the Cleveland area (and I still hate the Browns, thankyouverymuch). And it's interesting to me...Cleveland is Buckeye crazy. And they're farther from Columbus than Cincinnati is. I don't really understand how that works.

Anyway, while I get almost ZERO Reds coverage up here, one redeeming thing about living here is that the Bucks get plenty of media. Can't say that about Cincinnati.

[Chip R]

Seems to me the Buckeyes get plenty of publicity down here.

[Reds Freak]

Not a bad article, brings up some good points without bashing the city of Cincinnati (like most articles like this do). However, I do have one problem with the author's line on the Browns and Bengals getting equal coverage in Columbus. I grew up in Cincinnati but have lived in Columbus the past few years while going to school. In my opinion, Cleveland area sports get way more attention in the media than Cincinnati sports. Especially on talk radio.

If you listen to sports talk radio in Columbus, I would say 96% of it is Ohio State football. Very rarely do you ever get Reds or Bengals talk. The only time I have heard UC talk is when they play OSU and I have never ever heard any Xavier talk. If they could pronounce Xavier correctly I would be surprised. So not only is there poor coverage in Cincinnati on OSU there is worse coverage in Columbus on Cincinnati sports.

PS, I am OSU fan and even I get tired of all the 24/7 OSU coverage up here in Columbus. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

[TeamBoone]

I agree with you Chip. I see their success in the Enquirer all the time. I see their merchandise in virtually every store that sells clothing (much more than the Reds in a few that I could mention), and I highly dobut they'd stock their shelves so full if it wasn't selling. I see people wearing OSU gear all over town.

I think this truly is a misconception. The writer of the article has "probably" stated the truth about stuff he's seen in The Enquirer, but he/she conveniently chose not to talk about what he HAS seen in The Enquierer regarding OSU coverage.

[Caseyfan21]

The truth really is that the Columbus Dispatch returns the favor in not giving the Reds much coverage. I think it goes both way for whatever reason. Columbus gets much more Cleveland coverage jammed down our throats from the media that we do Cincinnati coverage.

[paintmered]

OSU gets just as good if not better media coverage than UC in Cincinnati. UC upsets #6 Rutgers and the Buckeyes are on the front page the next morning, not UC.

Of course, Cincinnati is also the only other Ohio city with a BCS football team. It's unreasonable to think that OSU is entitled to own Cincinnati. For example, I doubt Penn St. owns Pittsburgh. They probably have a large number of fans there, but they don't own Pittsburgh and aren't top billing.

[Yachtzee]

Notre Dame gets a lot of press in Cleveland, although the Buckeyes still own the place. Before Lebron, the Buckeyes got more press than even the Cavs. The difference is that the Cleveland area does not have another major college football program within the same amount of distance as Cincinnati. Cincinnati media has to split coverage between OSU, UC, and UK, with maybe a little Louisville thrown in for good measure. As much as I follow them, Kent State and U. of Akron just don't garner same amount of attention. For basketball, it's worse for Cincinnati because they have UC, Xavier, OSU, UK, Louisville, and UD all within a reasonable distance. Cleveland has Akron, Kent State, and Cleveland State to compete for attention with OSU. Again, as much as I love 'em, not exactly the same level of competition.

If you want a "traitor city," look no further than Toledo, where I'd say most people are squarely in cahoots with TSUN.

[WMR]

Clevelanders love them some Ohio State, that's for sure!!

[reds1869]

Having lived in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati I feel particularly qualified in saying that the idea of Porkopolis not liking OSU is way off base. Columbus people are delusional when it comes to the Buckeyes and their place in the world. They don't understand that the world outside of Central Ohio doesn't revolve around tOSU.

My analysis: Columbus is all Bucks, Cleveland has a heavy OSU base with shadings of other schools, and Cincinnati has a bigger OSU base than I thought based on what the Columbus media always said before I moved here. Columbus media looks down their nose at Cincinnati, Cincinnati has an inferiority complex, and Cleveland looks down it's nose at both cities--though particularly at Columbus. If Columbus people knew some of the things Clevelanders said about their town they'd be appalled.

[BuckWoody]

I think it has a lot to do with simple geography. Metro Cincinnati spreads across three states and that's the area covered by the local media. If you live just across the border in Kentucky or Indiana, there's no real reason for you to follow the Buckeyes. I grew up in Ohio less than 10 miles from the Indiana border and I've never given a hoot for Hoosier sports...I consider myself a Buckeye through and through. Same with the folks living just across the borders around Cincinnati. There's nothing wrong with that.

Obviously the metro Columbus and Cleveland areas do not share this trait...they are both "Ohio-bound". FWIW, I'm up in Dayton and it's very much a Buckeye town, especially football. It's less so a Buckeye basketball town since we have the Flyers and Raiders right here.

On a side note, I remember reading an article on the TV ratings for the 2003 BCS title game and the top four TV markets in the country as far as percentage of TV's tuned in were Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati.

[Danny Serafini]

Originally Posted by Yachtzee

If you want a "traitor city," look no further than Toledo, where I'd say most people are squarely in cahoots with TSUN.

OK, I've got to take issue with that one. This is most certainly not a Michigan city. What it is is a city split right around 50/50. If anything it's tilted a little more towards OSU, but I think it's the Michigan fans being quiet the past few years as anything else. They're a group that can dish it out, but doesn't take it very well. We're within an hour of Ann Arbor, and there are plenty of people who live on the other side of the state line who come into Toledo to work, so there's a decent amount of Michigan fans. It makes things a lot of fun leading up to the game since it's a fairly even split and both sides are fanatical about it. But it's definitely not a Michigan town.

[Red Leader]

Originally Posted by max venable

Now I live in the Cleveland area (and I still hate the Browns, thankyouverymuch). And it's interesting to me...Cleveland is Buckeye crazy. And they're farther from Columbus than Cincinnati is. I don't really understand how that works.

What college football teams does the Cleveland area have to root for OTHER than OSU? Youngstown St (not big league enough); Kent (pathetic for a long time, now improving, but not big league enough either.

What college football teams does the Cincinnati area have to root for OTHER than OSU? UC, UK, Louisville, Miami of Ohio.

I'm really getting sick of articles like this out of Columbus: "You don't love us enough!" Give me a break. People that beg to be loved often don't deserve it or else they wouldn't have to beg for it.

[SunDeck]

I think the main reason is that Cincinnnati has professional sports AND two Div I colleges. My brother lived in Columbus for about four years and I agree that it always seemed like the Browns and Indians got more press than the Bengals and Reds. But then, at the time those two franchises were outperforming the Reds and Bengals, so maybe that had something to do with it.

I grew up on the west side of Cincinnati and I'd swear there is more love in Price Hill, Delhi and Bridgetown for Notre Dame than there is for the Bucks. That's probably due to the fact that I grew up going to Catholic schools which limited my exposure for sure, but when you consider how strong that tradition is on the west side, then it's understandable. Heck, I remember during mass the pastor of our church included a prayer for the Irish in his closing prayer.

[Grounds_Crew]

I'm a huge Buckeyes fan for both football and basketball. In fact, I wanted to attend OSU for college, but my parents urged that I attend Miami Univ up in Oxford. So, I attended Miami and earned my B.A. in Mass Communication but my heart is still with OSU athletics. It always has been and always will be.

O - H....

[rdiersin]

Originally Posted by SunDeck

I grew up on the west side of Cincinnati and I'd swear there is more love in Price Hill, Delhi and Bridgetown for Notre Dame than there is for the Bucks. That's probably due to the fact that I grew up going to Catholic schools which limited my exposure for sure, but when you consider how strong that tradition is on the west side, then it's understandable. Heck, I remember during mass the pastor of our church included a prayer for the Irish in his closing prayer.

I grew up on the West Side (Delhi) and went to public school, but felt the same way. For the most part, people were Notre Dame fans over Ohio State. It helped develop my dislike of the Irish, even though I don't have much love lost on OSU either.