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UMass > MAC for all sports in 2025-2026

Jetskies said:
realignment is making everyone change their stance. As fat joe says "yesterday's price is not today's price!"

i.e. - the picky/choosy MAC of yesterday that forced UMass to sacrifice its whole Athletic Department for the sake of football stability, is not the same MAC now that NIU is gone.

FWIW, I think UMass made a YUGE mistake letting go of a good thing in the A10 - but i digress.

Agree with Kolumbo, but re-worded as --- I think today, the MAC is absolutely capable of lowering their demands to get a brand name like UConn in their portfolio, even if only football. Again - NIU changes the negotiation.
If the situation gets dire, they will call us - But as others have said, we won't pick up the phone.

We're all in on the real deal - P4 or bust.
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The A-10 is a dead. It’s nothing like it used to be.
 
ZooCougar said:
The A-10 is a dead. It’s nothing like it used to be.
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Why is the A10 dead?

I do think the MAC is in serious trouble, not because of just sports stuff, but because the shrinking pool of college kids is an existential threat to every large regional that is effectively open admission. The world doesn’t need all of these big schools in two aging states like Ohio and Michigan. The A10 is not facing that problem.
 
The move appears to be from the new chancellor and wants to be competitive. Giving up the A10 hurts for nostalgia but is a move between other leagues.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Why is the A10 dead?

I do think the MAC is in serious trouble, not because of just sports stuff, but because the shrinking pool of college kids is an existential threat to every large regional that is effectively open admission. The world doesn’t need all of these big schools in two aging states like Ohio and Michigan. The A10 is not facing that problem.
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I would argue schools like St Bona and La Salle are in deeper trouble than Kent State or Central Michigan

That said I believe UMass is making a mistake with their conference change
 
From an institution standpoint they have more research partnerships with MAC schools.
 
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Tyler2Rings said:
I would argue schools like St Bona and La Salle are in deeper trouble than Kent State or Central Michigan

That said I believe UMass is making a mistake with their conference change
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Agree on St. Bonaventure, but LaSalle is a big city school in a mid-Atlantic state. It should be fine for a while.

The entire reason for many of these MAC school's existence, rapidly growing population in the industrial heartland, is long gone. States have budget problems and university enrollment is dropping rapidly, especially in the Rust Belt. Nostalgia is the only thing keeping some of these schools going now. Several of them should be shut down.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Agree on St. Bonaventure, but LaSalle is a big city school in a mid-Atlantic state. It should be fine for a while.

The entire reason for many of these MAC school's existence, rapidly growing population in the industrial heartland, is long gone. States have budget problems and university enrollment is dropping rapidly, especially in the Rust Belt. Nostalgia is the only thing keeping some of these schools going now. Several of them should be shut down.
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La Salle almost dropped to Division 3 a couple of years ago. Fine is not how I would describe them. Also, the market in Philadelphia is extremely competitive. I think they will survive but it will be ugly.
 
Bongo Fury said:
From an institution standpoint they have more research partnerships with MAC schools.
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The MAC has football and they get CFP money.

UMass basketball hasn’t been great in over 25 years.

UMass is in a more solid position now. They can’t schedule as an independent well enough. Their SEC schedule this season was more difficult than Texas’s SEC schedule.
 
shizzle787 said:
La Salle almost dropped to Division 3 a couple of years ago. Fine is not how I would describe them. Also, the market in Philadelphia is extremely competitive. I think they will survive but it will be ugly.
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I think a lot of schools should drop down a division or two. Lasalle may survive as a university, it may not. Time will tell.

Every state in the country is going to rationalize the expenses of their university systems. Several of the MAC schools are going away or turning into satellite campuses. That is a certainty.
 
ZooCougar said:
The MAC has football and they get CFP money.

UMass basketball hasn’t been great in over 25 years.

UMass is in a more solid position now. They can’t schedule as an independent well enough. Their SEC schedule this season was more difficult than Texas’s SEC schedule.
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Ironically, the school may be as highly regarded academically as it has ever been. UMass leveraged its Boston alumni base to become a safety school for northeastern Computer Science majors that didn’t get into Harvard, MIT or other top schools, but wanted to work in the Boston tech industry. Now the school is very well respected in the technology industry and a rising tide has lifted the rest of the programs at UMass.
 
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UConnJim said:
What is the over/under for attendance for the Tuesday 11/25 home game against Bowling Green?
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Two nights before Thanksgiving in Amherst? I’d guess 247 if you count the players, coaches, support guys, ticket taker(s), vendor(s), announcers, etc. That’s 332 if you get to count the Bowling Green traveling party too.
 
Attendance might be pretty good given students can walk to the game right after dinner. Interesting note about McGuirk Alumni Stadium. The walk to the stadium from say Berkshire Dining Commons is 10 minutes. The walk back for late night munchies is 45 minutes. The difference is staggering. :confused:

Iowa, Mizzou, and even Temple. That's not too bad for being in a G5 conference.
 
Kolumbo said:
Attendance might be pretty good given students can walk to the game right after dinner. Interesting note about McGuirk Alumni Stadium. The walk to the stadium from say Berkshire Dining Commons is 10 minutes. The walk back for late night munchies is 45 minutes. The difference is staggering. :confused:

Iowa, Mizzou, and even Temple. That's not too bad for being in a G5 conference.
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before thanksgiving? I think at Lowell we were in school but not on wednesday... that place will be a ghost town
 
Patman said:
before thanksgiving? I think at Lowell we were in school but not on wednesday... that place will be a ghost town
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Amateur night. no work or classes the next day. what better way to live it up than at a football game knowing you are feasting on turkey the next day. sure many kids go home, but many students live in Mass. Plus UMass is the only legit football show in state.
 
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Kolumbo said:
Amateur night. no work or classes the next day. what better way to live it up than at a football game knowing you are feasting on turkey the next day. sure many kids go home, but many students live in Mass. Plus UMass is the only legit football show in state.
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Patman said:
before thanksgiving? I think at Lowell we were in school but not on wednesday... that place will be a ghost town
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Absolutely no one will be there. I almost want to go to see how many no ones are there.

1) It’s a Tuesday. 2) It’s UMass football. 3) Campus will be empty.

I don’t know what they do at UConn, but UMass has a hard close of the residence halls on that Wednesday morning. Kids get fined $150 if they’re not out by 9 or 10 - they will all be gone by Tuesday afternoon.
 
If not in session, wouldn’t be many students at all. Most will be home in Boston. They haven’t drawn well even when in session. If there is some success then Employees and locals will show like they did for Hockey.
 
MACtion is such an interesting case study in revenue, to me.
is it worth having a deal for "slow night" TV slots, at the expense of stadium attendance?
the MAC must be confident the answer is "yes" to this.

across the conference, is their average attendance that low anyway, that it doesn't matter if they have a tuesday night game with empty stands?

it just seems like odd logic to me. Even if the money is better than what they'd get for saturday games, i feel like it guarantees your program will never grow. maybe this is why NIU left. There was nowhere left to go/grow, in this conference.
 
Jetskies said:
MACtion is such an interesting case study in revenue, to me.
is it worth having a deal for "slow night" TV slots, at the expense of stadium attendance?
the MAC must be confident the answer is "yes" to this.

across the conference, is their average attendance that low anyway, that it doesn't matter if they have a tuesday night game with empty stands?

it just seems like odd logic to me. Even if the money is better than what they'd get for saturday games, i feel like it guarantees your program will never grow. maybe this is why NIU left. There was nowhere left to go/grow, in this conference.
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As a revenue play it’s not great. What they are looking for is exposure and they definitely get more exposure.

The MAC has done this for quite a while. When Jim Delaney was MAC commish he made a name for himself by getting MAC basketball on ESPN. In order to do that they played games late at night. Students would show up to games in Pajamas as a joke.
 
ZooCougar said:
As a revenue play it’s not great. What they are looking for is exposure and they definitely get more exposure.

The MAC has done this for quite a while. When Jim Delaney was MAC commish he made a name for himself by getting MAC basketball on ESPN. In order to do that they played games late at night. Students would show up to games in Pajamas as a joke.
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Edit:

I got my dreary midwest conferences mixed up. It was the OVC and Delany that did that late night basketball games.
 
This video talks about the value of MAC Schools. I think it's dumb that Northern Illinois went to the Mountain West, but it gives a good indication of who the MW might target in the future........they previously targeted Toledo in addition to Northern Illinois. Toledo is actually the most valuable brand in the MAC, according to the metrics used in this video. Northern Illinois is second. Ohio University and Miami Ohio are 3 and 4, and would bring value as well, based on the metrics used here. UMass was not included, so I'm not sure where they fall.

1. Toledo
2. Northern Illinois
3. Ohio
4. Miami (OH)
5. Western Michigan
6. Central Michigan
7. Bowling Green
8. Buffalo
9. Ball State
10. Kent State
11. Akron
12. Eastern Michigan

 
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I was on a 5:30am flight last Friday from BDL to DTW and about 20-25 UMass girls on the Rowing team boarded for some invitational they were flying out for.
That flight couldn’t have been cheap to move that many athletes out there for a non-revenue sport.
 
Vowelguy said:
Damn this started out so promising.
Posts like this usually end with "and I heard someone on the phone saying 'my sister-in-law's younger brother says that UConn is going to be invited to the B1G'."
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I was thinking in an entirely different direction. After he wrote "20-25 UMass girls" I expected "Dear Penthouse Forum, .......".
 
Calm down boys…
Nothing more to be read into this than that amount of rowers seemed to me to be very expensive to into Detroit on a MAC budget.
 
ElGuapo said:
Calm down boys…
Nothing more to be read into this than that amount of rowers seemed to me to be very expensive to into Detroit on a MAC budget.
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I mean how much worse than the A10?
 
FfldCntyFan said:
I was thinking in an entirely different direction. After he wrote "20-25 UMass girls" I expected "Dear Penthouse Forum, .......".
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"I never thought this would happen to me..."
 
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