European universities have lots of intramural sports, including soccer. They just can’t understand our massive commercialization of college level sports, but no one else in the world could either, it is uniquely American.
The way this whole thing started was between very urban Ivies in the USA:
> The first organized college sports club was formed in 1843 when Yale University created a boat club.[4] Harvard University then followed in their footsteps, creating a similar boat club a year later. These boat clubs participated in rowing races called Regattas.[5] The creation of these organizations set the stage for the first intercollegiate sporting event in the U.S. This event took place in 1852, when the rowing team from Yale competed against the rowing team from Harvard at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.[4] This marked the beginning of intercollegiate competition and triggered the creation of numerous college athletic organizations.[citation needed] This historic race sparked the venerable rivalry between the two schools, the Yale-Harvard Regatta is considered the cornerstone of intercollegiate athletic competition in the United States.[6]
...
> The first intercollegiate football game between teams from Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) took place on November 6, 1869 at College Field (now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium at Rutgers University) in New Brunswick, New Jersey.[citation needed]
I don’t disagree the sport started in the ivies, but not where it became massively commercialized. Right now the Northeastern football programs are not very competitive, with the exception of Notre Dame. I can’t do this analysis right now, but I’d bet that there is a strong correlation between college football revenue and distance from professional teams, adjusting for the date at which the professional teams were founded.
Segment the continental United States into quadrants. In which quadrant would the Notre Dame pin fall? It’s also about 1.5 hours from downtown Chicago. Tuscaloosa, Alabama is about 3.5 hours from the nearest major city with a sports team, Atlanta.
