I enjoy the argument, and he is not wrong on his overall point, I just don't think a Rutgers-Rider dual has anything to do with it.
I do appreciate overall what he is saying, which is that by having these rivalries, it creates a tickle down effect that gets more people interested, and therefore boosts participation. However, part of it is also just demographics. For example, the NHL moving to Atlanta did not increase hockey particpation in the Atlanta metro, it just failed because you were supplying a product for which there was no demand.
As to the Rutgers points, the timeline is a bit off and it is just not accurate as to what happened. Pernetti absolutely favored wrestling, as did Julie. Pernetti liked it because he thought that it would help us further align with Big Ten, and both of them liked it because it was starting to sell meaningul amounts of tickets, and actually had a path to supporting itself.
At that point, the sport had already been "saved" at Rutgers, and credit Goodale getting fan interest to a point where Pernetti and Julie, both confronted with budget shortfalls, saw increased support as a value add.
Now of course, if we dont do things the right way, fan interest could wane, and we could find ourselves back where we were. That can always happen. But with the strength of the sport in NJ, and the strength of the Big Ten in the sport (and the general amount of money being thrown off by the Big Ten conference, that is very unlikely.