Massachusetts Football Decision Nears

[DFW HOYA]

http://www.masslive.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/03/potential_umass_football_upgra.html

[Fordham]

Wow - I'm surprised at those buyout figures

[apaladin]

I really don't understand why they bring up that Navy got $1.4 from Ohio St. Are they saying they will get that kind of money just by going FBS. UMass will still be UMas and Navy will still be Navy.

[Umass74]

Last fall UMass played Michigan close and received $450,000, the largest ever payday for UMass football.

The next week Bowling Green visited Michigan stadium and lost 65-21---and received $1.1 million....

[Lehigh Football Nation]

I'm still trying to reconcile the logic which says that UMass estimated new income would "support the move", yet one of the "benefits" - more women's scholarships thanks to Title IX - will cost so much more money I honestly fail to see how they could possibly find that much more income.

The article then turns around and says guarantee games and games in Foxboro are potential revenue sources. However, they are revenue sources that can just as easily be exploited by UMass while remaining in FCS - and, as a matter of fact, have.

I think UMass' move to the MAC is all but a done deal. It will give UMass - perhaps - a couple more body-bag games, Wednesday night football that nobody will watch, and a marginal amount of TV money that will be eaten up by 1) their fee to the MAC to sponsor the championship game and bowl sponsorships and 2) other financial commitments.

If UMass is doing this because they want to be an FBS program and twenty years from now win a BCS Bowl, that's fine - I'm OK with that. If UMass is doing this to make money, they need their heads examined.

[Go...gate]

If I were the Big East, I would certainly be keeping an eye on this. I still think UMASS, like Villanova, is a natural as an all-sports member.

IMO, the BE will rue the day they brought in TCU and TCU will probably bolt the conference inside of a decade.

[aust42]

Why would UMASS want to join the MAC and downgrade their level of competition? The MAC is rated below two 1AA confernences (CAA & Southern) per Saragin and averages about 5k fans at their games. Just saying. xlolx Marshall went in and won that conference the first year they joined. Now look at them.

[TheValleyRaider]

If UMass is doing this because they want to be an FBS program and twenty years from now win a BCS Bowl, that's fine - I'm OK with that. If UMass is doing this to make money, they need their heads examined.

The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and while I wager #1 is more true, that's not a good selling point, especially considering the financial constraints on a state university. I think the idea of making money is the only way they can justify such a move in the current environment

With the conference landscape in a state of flux, their goal appears to be make a move now. Easier to move between FBS leagues than it is to move from FCS to FBS. If the MAC really is interested (and I'm sure they are), then it's hard to fault UMass too much for trying to jump at the present moment


IMO, the BE will rue the day they brought in TCU and TCU will probably bolt the conference inside of a decade.

I'm not sure the downside of TCU's invitation to the Big East from either perspective (though I admittedly come at it from the TCU angle). The Big East gives TCU everything it could want in a conference, which is large-scale exposure (the populous northeast, ESPN TV contract) and a direct shot at a BCS bowl. Of other conferences that could make that offer, the Big 10, SEC and Pac-12 won't do it, the ACC has little motivation to do it, and as long as Texas is running the show in the Big 12, there's no benefit to TCU going there

If TCU leaves the Big East, it'll be because there's a series of seismic shifts in the conference landscape, shifts that will practically render the Big East dissipated anyway, and likely precipitated by moves made elsewhere xtwocentsx

[jmufan999]

I'm not sure the downside of TCU's invitation to the Big East from either perspective

absolutely agree... a great move on both sides.