Pretty simple..... Richmond has no other sporting events or teams to get behind during the winter in the city. The school recognized this and marketed and built around this. They target the suburbs with their marketing.... getting families and building a community/family type atmosphere is their mission and it worked. That vcu community is tight and they built this over 10 years with the Final Four fueling their movement.
They built a brand and we did not. Now we are light years behind thanks to losing years and the school not doing shit to build upon and after in making Mason a Basketball school.
I always see this argument. Yes DC has professional sports but they are generally Medicore. And for a period of time GEorgetown had a big following