There is quite a bit to do here. There are other quite large universities. Bethel and IUSB.
If you stayed on the South Side, I assume you were at the new Comfort Suites. I live over in that area. That was actually home to the first mall before UP. (its now a strip center)
South Bend was actually built around the Studebaker, not Notre Dame.
It has been a dying town, I cannot deny that, but it's rebirth isn't all due to Notre Dame. It isn't even really a typical college town. My sister attended Purdue and that was better, but I can agree Eddy Street Commons is helping.
I guess unless you live here its hard to describe. We have just as much to do as any typical town. We have a minor league baseball team thats ballpark just got a 10 million dollar renovation. There is ice skating, we are close to the beach and Casino.
But I am happy to see the team do well, its just overrated at times and gets shoved in your face at times. Heck when the Colts won the super bowl it didn't get nearly as much attention as the Irish having a bad season. Same when the Super Bowl was in Indy!
Really Bethel & IUSB are quite large universities? IUSB has 3300 fulltime students and Bethel (which I think is really in Mishawaka) has less than that?
ND football doesn't really impact the minor league baseball team you mention. ND football runs Sept - Nov, minor league baseball runs April - August. I also doubt they impact people heading to the beach...it gets kinda cold up there in the winter and all.
Most college towns are built around the university. Bloomington is very much the same way....except their football has sucked pretty much forever.
Maybe you're too close to it, but I can tell you the Super Bowl win by the Colts and hosting of the SB this year were a 100X a bigger story then ND's bad seasons (or even their great season this year). Nothing in my nearly 40 years of living around Indy was nearly as big a story as either of those events.
More than 80K fill the stadium for campus for each home game....they spend $$, stay overnight and help tourism. People that travel in the area during the summers come to show their kids the campus. The economic impact of ND is very big and without it, South Bend would likely just be another small Indiana town.