jmt57

This article sheds some light on the details:
Rent-free deal at Gillette allows UMass to climb to FBS - The Boston Globe

UMass wanted to move up to the FBS, but needed a bigger stadium to play in before that could happen. As pointed out previously they are counting on playing in a more heavily populated area, and closer to a larger number of alumni.

The MAC gets some basketball games played in the east in exchange for adding UMass.

Robert Kraft will initially allow UMass to play rent free; he'll share in future revenue and also benefit from more traffic and money spent at Patriot Place.

BradfordPatsFan

I doubt any BCS level league would want to take on a start up program like this given all of the uncertainty with conference realignment, revenue question marks, new tv deals etc. The only BCS league that makes any sense is the Big East but they are adding Villanova, with whom they already have a relationship due to their basketball membership. No one is willing to cut up the cash pie any more than they already are and for most FCS schools, football is an albatross. This makes sense on both sides (MAC and UMass).

Now the games at Gillette, I get it but I am not sure how a Saturday afternoon game with Kent State will match up with BC playing Florida State and UConn hosting West Virginia both an hour away. Sure, the UMass alums will go, but anyone else who wants to see high quality college ball would likely choose the ride to Chestnut Hill or East Hartford.

__________________
Patriots Football...
It is what it is!

upstater1

You'd be surprised. U Buffalo started bleeding bigtime $$$ once its football team joined the same league as UMass.

It's a money bleeder, if anything. The MAC has no TV deal, no + from bowls that doesn't evaporate with travel to bowls, and UMass basketball isn't even joining the league. UMass is trying to make itself more attractive for future BCS conference expansion.

patchick

Not building a mega-millions new state-owned stadium sounds like a win for the taxpayers. But...

As a native of Amherst, I have to say moving the Minutemen 2+ hours away is a serious blow to the town. People come, they eat, they shop. And consider that my mom's been faithfully going to crummy Alumni stadium for years. She and all of the other year-in, year-out fans are seriously screwed by this plan. And what's homecoming going to revolve around, a lacrosse match?

Just one more indignity in a state that thinks "Western Mass" means Worcester.

cavtroop

Not to threadjack too much, but heck, I live right next to Worcester - getting anyone to come out even this 'far' is a chore, most of them think Hopkinton is Western Mass...

__________________
What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger...

upstater1

It's funny, the anti-Boston thing is probably why you have so many Yankee fans just East of the NY border, and for a similar reason there are a great many Red Sox fans East of the Hudson River and West of the Mass. border. People in towns like Troy despise the Dutch!!

Wolfpack

Well there's no way whatsoever the Big East or ACC would have taken them, and there's also no way whatsoever they could have filled an FBS schedule as an independent. So it was really MAC or C-USA, with the MAC making the most sense.

Wolfpack

Me too!
When a 1-AA team goes on the road to play a powerhouse 1-A team, the 1-AA team gets a hefty payday and usually a hefty butt whuppin'. What they do not get, however, it a return visit from that 1-A school. There's just no money in it for the powerhouse 1-A school. Meanwhile, the Minutemen probably made more money in that one game at Michigan than they did the rest of the seasonAs long as he isn't losing money, I doubt he much cares who comes to town.

Wolfpack

And I'm saying no such assurance exists. Non-conference games are literally scheduled by 2 schools agreeing to play each other, so the only one who could give such an assurance would be the athletic director of such a program. There's no commissioner who can promise Kraft "OK, I'll make sure you host a big draw like Texas, Alabama or Notre Dame within a few years." And the reason why big name programs don't make road trips to crappy little programs (either 1-AA schools or the small conference 1-A schools) is because there's not enough money in it.

Don't get me wrong... UMass would certainly love to host such a school. But no such school is going to waste a precious week of playing football on such a trip. A school like Texas makes a heckuva lot more money by hosting their own crappy little program than they would by making a road trip to a crappy little program. UMass will not be hosting anybody more prestigious than the likes of BC, UConn, Temple, and the occasional 1-AA school like UNH or UMaine.