Is the State of North Dakota really this financially broke?!?

[Reign of Terrier]

Social media was almost irrelevant 10 years ago too

[walliver]

Here's another long term measure that illustrates my point.

Compare UCF, App State, and NDSU

10 years ago, the three schools were pretty much indistinguishable from each other but in the last 2 years UCF has skyrocketed. Meanwhile, Boise State's publicity peaked in 2010 and has been relatively higher than NDSU since. Point is, FCS national championships don't do much by way of publicity. Sustained success against the big boys over a number of years (in the business they call it brand recognition) does that.

(The more I look at different permutations of trends and see how they seemingly track with one another, the more I think it has more to do with the specific media outlets than one team, but that's a debate for somewhere else.)

One of those schools is in Boone, NC and another in Fargo, ND.
It is not surprising that a team located in Orlando, FL that plays in a large stadium is doing much better as far as publicity.

All three, however, are somewhat trapped at present:
UCF should be in the P5, but is not particularly attractive to the SEC or ACC, and has to hope for major reorganization or for the Big 12 to bite the bullet and expand to Florida. For now they are the G5 NDSU.
App State is sitting in the Sun Belt. I have no doubt they would love to replace UCF in the AAC, but they aren't doing that from the Belt. IF JMU ever makes it to C-USA, App might follow, but that isn't a step up in football by any means.
NDSU has few realistic opportunities to go FBS, the long discussions on AGS not withstanding. Their best chance is most of the MVFC going FBS - this would likely require creation of a new all-sport conference or the NCAA allowing football-only conferences in FBS. I suspect a FBS MVFC would immediately be competetive with the Sun Belt, MAC, and C-USA. I also don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.