Ironic to hear ESPN analysts blather on and on, in wonderment, about UConn’s rise from nothing in the past 25 years - all without recognizing that having ESPN in the same town is probably the single biggest factor in UConn’s rise.
That, and whatever marketing genius started calling the school UCONN and not Connecticut.
ESPN is in Bristol CT, 50 miles from UCONN. The school has been known as UCONN since at least the ‘50’s
It became University of Connecticut in 1939, by which time the nickname Huskies was already in use. Local use of UConn dates to then. Natural that outsiders like ESPN staff would adopt local usage whenthey moved there.
How many know the University of Minnesota’s ‘Ski-U-Mah’ shtick? Had ESPN based in Minneapolis, I bet everyone would know it by now.
If you go to the UConn boards you will find that folks there think that ESPN doesn't like them and didn't help them.
Anyway ESPN was a big part of the growth of the Big East Basketball and college basketball in general. But know without its football teams the BE is down.