UMass as leverage

[Dann]

umass-starts playing in the mac next year, just got beat up by bcu. bball and other sports are not anything to look at either. new england isn't a great recruit base to start with in sports, its small enough with uconn/bc already. what mk do they bring?
ucf- has been beating bcs teams(some of them good 1's) for the last 4 years. they have a competitive bball program that is rising quick. good baseball, great soccer and so on. fl is a huge recruit base in hs sports, half of the ncaa gets players down there in the boat loads. great mk add to boot...

big big difference between the 2, so no this isn't the same as usf fans and ucf...

 

[Vuce]

Hopefully UCONN will schedule UMASS is the near future, that game would certainly be more interesting than Buffalo. If we don't schedule them it will only be because we fear losing to them and we don't want to legitimize them. Just like BC was and is afraid of losing to us.

uMess is already on the schedule. They come to the Rent next year and we can kick their all over the field.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I just don't understand why anyone would even think UMass. UMass does not play a big academic, social, or athletic role in Massachusetts. It's not hard to understand when consider all of the colleges in Massachusetts. BC struggles with the same issues as they are less relevant in Boston than Harvard and MIT from an academic and social standpoint. Remember, the biggest college football game in Boston is still Harvard/Yale. The media rarely reports on BC and it is even worse for UMass.

Having lived in both Mass and CT, there could not be a bigger difference between the relationship between the state and the State's flagship university. What made UConn unique and perceived as a sleeping giant was the lack of professional sports teams in the state, the strong relationship between the state and the school, and a strong fan base as judged by men's and woman's basketball. UMass has none of the above.

UMass has 68k students through their system. There are 220k alumni in Massachussets alone. Mass is one of the 10 largest and among the 10 wealthiest states in the nation. It is a tremendous market without a state school, and BCU, which is a national university and national alumni base, is ripe for getting picked off within that market.

As we saw in Connecticut with the rise of the hoops and football program, non-alum fans will come out of the woodwork for the state school. they generally don't do that for a private school to the same extent.

 

[pinotbear]

UMess already went PC with their transition from Redmen to Minutemen, but Minutepersons or Minute People awaits in the next round.

would their WBB team become the Minute Maids?

 

[Adios]

The term "yankee" actually comes from a British doctor making from of disheveled settlers here, comparing them to members of a gay club in London. The NY Yankees might have to change their name soon....

 

[Robertelamin]

No UMass please.

 

[CTMike]

0% of a large market is still 0%.

From any sort of business sense, it's entirely too early to even think about UMass in this light. You are essentially betting on a penny stock. They are a start up, and most start ups fail. If UMass meets the next few years with success on the field and putting fannies in the stands, then it may be worth revisiting.

 

[buckley503]

I have several UMass alum friends who live in eastern MA and big sport fans. They could not care that their schools football team went to the MAC. BC owns the area and look how crappy they do in terms of getting butts in the seats. Eastern MA is a pro area and UMass would never capture the interest. To say it could swell as it did in CT is a farce. CT does not have the pro teams to deal with and UMass, eventhough it is the state school, doesn't have the brand recognition even in its own state as UConn does (thank you Jim and Geno).

 

[Adios]

The NFL flopped in Boston about 4 or 5 times before the Patriots succeeded.

 

[metsfan2323]

I love when waylon lectures us common folk about market studies. It must be so frustrating for him to be the smartest person he's ever known.

As if he's too stupid to realize that the college football market in Mass (like NYC) isn't the same as Omaha, Columbus (OH), Atlanta, or Austin. The reason we shouldn't consider UMass is the reason Nebraska was invited to the Big 10 and not Rutgers. It doesn't matter how wealthy, or how large the population is if they don't care enough to spend money on your product.

If we add UMass, the ACC will sit back and laugh. They will call our bluff, we will water down the big east, and recruiting will become even more difficult for us. Not to mention the fact it will jeopardize the already fragile BCS status. We don't need a market study to know that. If UMass was as valuable as Waylon claims, why isn't the ACC interested?

Just my opinion, but I find most of Waylon's/Nelson's posts to be interesting and good reads even if I don't agree with them. WingU's posts generally seem kind of douchie...but that is just me.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I have several UMass alum friends who live in eastern MA and big sport fans. They could not care that their schools football team went to the MAC. BC owns the area and look how crappy they do in terms of getting butts in the seats. Eastern MA is a pro area and UMass would never capture the interest. To say it could swell as it did in CT is a farce. CT does not have the pro teams to deal with and UMass, eventhough it is the state school, doesn't have the brand recognition even in its own state as UConn does (thank you Jim and Geno).

As a Mass resident, I agree. Honestly nobody here knows or cares about college football, other than a reasonable number of BC alumns, and the folks who are interested in Harvard, and the Williams - Amherst game. Frankly, Connecticut isn't mcuh different. It's not a college football market. Nor is California other than some pockets of USC and UCLA fans. When I lived in San Jose, nobody knew or cared anything about Stanford, Cal or SJSU football. When I visit my parents in South Carolina, college football is THE sport, along with high school football. It will never, ever be that in MA, or NY.

 

[fasko]

I'm sensing a lot of anger directed at one another here. Good rule of thumb, if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything.

 

[toppencil]

So the Big East really wants another team that struggles to sell out a 40,000 seat stadium when they are competing for conference championships. Another team in a market where college football comes after the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL?

The Big East wants another team that will play in the same stadium as, but get fewer fans than, MLS' New England Revolution?

We want another team that doesn't travel well, won't impress any bowl committee, and will jeopardize our BCS rankings?

Yes, an upgrade in UMass will make recruiting harder. No, this is nothing like USF/UCF. UCF brings a lot more to the table than UMess. I could live with the recruiting being more difficult if UMess brought as much to the table as UCF, or Houston. They don't, they add no value. We are not in a position to bring in projects that add no immediate value, and only the potential for long-term positives.

When we were IAA how many fans came to the home games?

 

[UConnJim]

The infatuation with UMass baffles me. Do you realize they averaged 3,300 for basketball and 13,000 for football last year? Ok, they would probably average more in 1A football, but they play top level basketball and they average 3,300! There is almost no fan support or state interest. There are plenty of better choices than UMass for expansion.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

One thing that should be alarming about UMass and attendance is the track record of their basketball program. When they were very good (and by veryu good I am talking about being capable at remaining in the top ten for a couple of entire seasons and legitimately making a run at the national championship without requiring more than at worst a mild upset in the final four), they did sell the joint out. Once they started to fall a little bit from that point, it took a major opponent to attract a decent crowd and less than a decade removed from those glory days, the Mullins Center became a wasteland.

In all candor, a school that size with an on campus basketball arena should never draw less than 4,000 fans for a basketball gamae and when they are playing a conference (or reasonably prominent non conference) opponent, they should get closer to 8,000, even if they best they can hope for is a close to .500 season. UMass as basketball program was little mor than a fad to their 'fanbase' and like mood rings and the pet rock, someone may find a refuse to lose t-shirt at a garage sale and the seller will giggle to admit that he or she actually was caught up in that fad.

 

[ZooCougar]

Aren't the UMass called the Minutemen? I don't like that name, it's the same name that vigilante border patrol group uses. We should not be playing teams with nicknames that are offensive. I was so glad when St. Johns changed from the Redmen to the Red Storm.

I think the Patriots should change their name then too. Sometimes Patriotism offends the PC crowd. Can't have that.

 

[UCHuskies08]

Any solution involving the word "UMass" is not a solution

 

[ZooCougar]

The UMass "minutemen" nickname is actually the only thing remotely cool about UMass. That and some of the members of Pixies went there.

Some people are so PC that they should stop communicating with every

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I love when waylon lectures us common folk about market studies. It must be so frustrating for him to be the smartest person he's ever known.

As if he's too stupid to realize that the college football market in Mass (like NYC) isn't the same as Omaha, Columbus (OH), Atlanta, or Austin. The reason we shouldn't consider UMass is the reason Nebraska was invited to the Big 10 and not Rutgers. It doesn't matter how wealthy, or how large the population is if they don't care enough to spend money on your product.

If we add UMass, the ACC will sit back and laugh. They will call our bluff, we will water down the big east, and recruiting will become even more difficult for us. Not to mention the fact it will jeopardize the already fragile BCS status. We don't need a market study to know that. If UMass was as valuable as Waylon claims, why isn't the ACC interested?

Good point. Lets add Alabama and Florida instead. Those are the alternatives, right?

 

[Drumguy]

I read this post the other day and decided not to reply. I was just relooking for news, saw this and it made ROFL. UMass as leverage is one of the most absurd comments in this whole realignment morass.