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Message: [QUOTE="Towney007, post: 2564499, member: 5832"] 1.) I never insinuated they SHOULD be allowed into the AAC. Not at all. But that's the goal in the department and that's what they're hoping for. Whether that's realistic/unrealistic/whatever - it's what they're thinking and hoping for. Calm down. 2.) Springfield/Western Mass is a weird place. I kind of joke with people that there's almost an imaginary, gigantic tofu curtain that extends over the top of Holyoke and South Hadley and almost separates the region from Northampton,/Amherst/Easthampton/Deerfield, etc. Everyone knows each other on either side of the curtain, but you'd be surprised at how little business cross pollination there is. UMass gets covered by Masslive, but it's not a popular read. They do well when they come to the MassMutual Center, but that's few, far between and forever. No one travels from here to there. Go look at their billboards and advertising - and it's all Hampshire County businesses - Liquors 44, Cooley Dickinson, UMass Hotel, Country Hyundai... there's almost nothing south of that so-called curtain (which in turn effects attendance). You DO see MassMutual, but you don't see MGM. You don't see Baystate, or Trinity or Peter Pan or Teddy Bear or Smith & Wesson or Friendly's or Holyoke Medical Center or Suez or PeoplesBank or United Bank or... you get it. Now go to a Springfield Thunderbirds game? All those guys are there. And all the guy at UMass aren't at the Thunderbirds games. They don't have a TV deal. They're not broadcasted locally. If you want to see them, you have to go see them in person. In spite of that - they do well attendance-wise. When they're competitive, Springfield peeks its head up. When they're not, they're not. The football games were bizarrely well attended when they were in FCS, but when they moved to Gillette, they killed buzz and interest among local alums who felt slighted. Boston area alums could have cared less. They're back on campus now and the tail gating scene there laps UConn's times 100.... but no one goes into the games and the students all just go back to their dorms.. It's a weird place. [/QUOTE]

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