It is the rarest of rare events for a sport that is cult-like across the country but forgotten in Gotham. The first full week of December every year, college football takes center stage in New York. No, it is not because of a big game…Rutgers is Pinstripe Bowl bound, Army is prepping for their Navy battle this week but has had a disappointing year, and the City’s two college teams, moribund Fordham and downtrodden Columbia, went a combined 2-20 this fall and are both looking for new coaches. The reason is what will go on behind the scenes for marketers and admins across Manhattan.
Leading the week is the annual Sports Business Journal College Athletics forum, the best business to business event for those on the collegiate level. The event draw marketers and AD’s from across the country, and this year will draw a large slice of media because of the scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, the re-alignment of conferences and the state of the BCS. Then later in the week is the College Football Hall of Fame dinner, perhaps the most widely-attended event for some of the biggest names in collegiate athletics past and present, with several thousand people filling the event. Then on Saturday is the presentation of the Heisman Trophy, a three to four day event marked by presentations, meetings and sponsor activity. Around the week, most of the major conferences take the time to come in and meet with sales groups, networks, and other key media and VIP’s, all designed to help update Madison Avenue on the business goings-on of college athletics. Deals will be updated, college luminaries courted, policies discussed, media addressed, all in one place at one time as college football gives pause and college hoops cranks up.
There was a time when all fall was college football in New York, and other Northeastern cities, but those days, and many of the private institutions that dominated the early days of gridiron success, are a distant memory for their football prowess. The closest “rising” program to New York may actually by Stony Brook University on Long Island, which has put huge amounts of dollars into upgrading its athletic facilities and quality of play. Still for one week, the business of college comes full scale to New York, showing that the City is still the place where business gets done, and where if you are an athletic brand, you have to find a place to showcases your wares, whether they are in Boise or Miami and anywhere in between.
