Five Reasons Ole Miss is Mississippi’s Pro Sports Team
Mississippians are some of the most passionate sports fans in the country. In the Deep South, in particular, sports like football take on a higher meaning for many communities. While life may not be as romantic as an episode of Friday Night Lights, the sentiment of identity around sports is palpable.
But there’s a noticeable absence in the state when it comes to professional sports. Across North America, coastal cities and dense urban areas see plenty of attention from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. Multiple states, from New York to Texas to Florida to California, play home to multiple professional teams.
In states like these, locals don’t just have to be content with heading to their home stadium to cheer on their team. Since sports betting launched in the US in 2018, more and more states have set up betting markets. Offers are constantly rolling out, such as the Borgata promo code, which let fans back their team through bets like moneylines and props. Overwhelmingly, the emphasis is on the Big Four professional leagues.
But that doesn’t mean locals are left out to dry. While some may be wishing for an MLB or NFL team in Jackson or nearby in Alabama, many already feel they have a home team in the University of Mississippi Rebels. After all, oddsmakers like Borgata also offer odds on the NCAAF and give plenty of coverage to blue blood teams like the Ole Miss football squad. In fact, from September to January each year, the state is overrun with NCAA football coverage—and it’s just as fulfilling and popular as any pro sports team. Here’s why.
Reason One: Follow the Crowd
The University of Mississippi welcomes around 23,000 undergraduate students each year. Of these thousands of students, only around fifty will play on the football team—and the rest will pack into Vaught-Hemingway to watch the Rebels play.
They may not have taken home a national title since 1962, but it’s not unusual for 100,000 fans to tailgate outside the stadium before around 64,000 of them pack into their seats. For context, the NFL welcomed around 67,000 fans on average per game back in 2021.
Reason Two: Follow the Money
Here’s where the waters muddy slightly: the NFL is a business while Ole Miss is a university. The first pulls a profit from entertainment, the second from education—at least, in theory. When looking at the money, Ole Miss’s football team generated over $127 million from 2020 to 2021 and raked in around $17 million in profit.
While these numbers can’t compete with, say, the Dallas Cowboys’ valuation of $5 billion from Forbes, it highlights the fact that the Rebels are economically robust—just like a pro sports team.
Reason Three: A Longer Legacy
For the most part, locals who follow the NFL are probably rooting for the New Orleans Saints, Tennessee Titans, or the Atlanta Falcons. However, Ole Miss has been around longer than any of these teams, which means plenty of fans are probably rooting for the Rebels across generations.
The Falcons launched in 1965, the Saints in 1967, and the Titans in 1999. The Rebels at Ole Miss played their first game in 1890, a solid century before the NFL expanded into Tennessee.
Reason Four: And a Winning Legacy
As mentioned above, the Rebels haven’t taken home a national championship since 1962. Even so, the school is considered a ‘blue blood’ in the NCAA and regularly competes with the upper echelon in the SEC and beyond. Lane Kiffin took over in 2020, and led the team to a 10-2 finish in the regular season last year—only the eighth time in the team’s history they logged over ten wins in a season.
In other words, the Rebels may not be the most winningest team in the NCAA, but they’ve consistently posted quality play throughout the ages—and it’s made them a pleasure to follow.
Reason Five: Bigger Than Football
Even a university’s top quarterback may not be guaranteed any time or respect in the NFL. Even the most diehard fan will have to pay for season tickets and hope to be at a historical game. But that’s simply not the case with the NCAA—in Mississippi, Rebels fans can literally attend the university that’s associated with their team.
While the focus should be on education, Ole Miss fans aren’t just on the bandwagon when it comes to their team. Instead, they’re a living part of its history at the University of Mississippi, where hundreds of thousands have left their own mark.
