You don't buy it? But here we are... two total strangers with (presumably) no relationship to the University of Alabama, discussing the University of Alabama because of their football program that got their university into the New York Times and onto the homepage of Hacker News.

I guess we can debate whether "positive" equals "positive sentiment" or "positive success in generating brand awareness." However, the fact that this article exists underscores the positive publicity value of the Alabama football program regardless of whether this specific article is good or bad publicity.

In other words, the NYT never writes this article for Sheboygan State University's football program because not enough people care about it (note: it doesn't exist... nor does Sheboygan State... it's just a generic example so I wouldn't offend anyone with the name of a real university).

In contrast, people care about the University of Alabama's football program, which results in people caring about the University of Alabama.