CINCINNATI — If you are a Bearcats fan right now, you might be experiencing some football fever.
And why not?
The team is giving fans a lot to love about them right now —a revenge win over Notre Dame and soon joining The Big 12 Conference.
"We were right in the heart of it and it felt, I mean, it felt like playing at Nippert," Nick Moscato, a recent UC grad, said.
Moscato brought his dad for his birthday Saturday.
Right now, the UC grad is cautiously all in.
"It is the Cincinnati sports fan in me that's always waiting for the floor to drop out where it's like, 'Oh, what bad things are going to happen?' But there's still overwhelming feeling," Moscato said.
It is a cautious feeling Alumnus Brandon Trame knows all too well.
"We were prepared for disappointment and we didn't get it this weekend," Trame said.
It was one of the Top Five Bearcats experiences of Trame's life.
Trame runs The Den — a tailgate group that has grown a lot since it started in 2015.
It continues to grow like the enthusiasm for a Bearcats football program receiving national attention after cracking AP'S Top Five and joining a power conference.
But, it is not just about fan excitement. There is a real economic impact. A rising program means increasing revenue.
For example, at DuBois book store in Calhoun — business is good.
"We've been seeing record sales for home football games compared to some of our more recent previous years," General Manager JD DuBois said.
There is such a demand, DuBois is now juggling a problem. The pandemic supply chain issues mean some items, like jerseys, take a long time to refill.
"Fan excitement's at an all time high and we have never had difficult like this in getting product so we are hustling and working with our vendors," DuBois said.
Money is not just flowing off campus. Remember, we previously told you about the move to The Big 12 could boost UC conference revenue from about seven million each year to $40 million.
