The University of Massachusetts football program is looking to run with the big dogs, but the move to Division I-A comes with financial risks.
Administration and athletic officials from the flagship Amherst campus today announced the long-rumored move from the Football Championship Subdivision, to the Football Bowl Subdivision, commonly known as Division I-A, where the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, and Boston College compete.
Beginning in 2012, UMass will play in the Mid-American Conference, which features mostly teams from the Midwest and Buffalo plus the recent addition of Temple University. UMass and Temple bring the number of teams to 14 in the conference and both schools will become bowl-eligible in 2013.
“Playing in the FBS is where UMass should be positioned as the flagship campus of the state system,” Athletic Director John McCutcheon said in a statement. “The exposure and visibility that comes from playing on a national level will be a tremendous asset not only for athletics, but for the entire university.”
UMass is counting on football to help build more alumni support for the university. The biggest concern, in an era of budget cuts, is whether revenues will outpace expenses. UMass will be required to add 22 scholarships to the 63 it currently awards, to bring it up to the mandated 85 that FBS schools must award. The total cost will be about $2 million — $1 million for the football scholarships and another $1 million for women’s scholarships to comply with Title IX, the federal statute requiring gender equity. Earlier this year, McCutcheon told the Springfield Republican the school would earmark more scholarships for women’s sports such as track and crew.
Last fall, CommonWealth ran a story about the budget imbalance at Massachusetts state colleges and universities between men’s and women’s sports. UMass was among those schools struggling to reach a level playing field.
McCutcheon insisted the football program’s move will not require additional state funds because of the increased revenue opportunities associated with playing Division I-A, including an expanded fan base, television revenues, money from bowl appearances and sponsorships. But McCutcheon’s vision may not meet reality.
The announcement was made at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, where UMass will play its home games, 100 miles away from Amherst. Playing in Gillette is key to the move to allow the MAC to have a foothold in the Boston television market and maximize ticket sales. Gillette holds more than 68,000 while UMass’ McGuirk Stadium seats 17,000. But while playing in the state-of-the-art facility may attract some new fans, the built-in campus fan base and collegiate atmosphere will thin with distance from the campus.
The NCAA requires schools in the FBS to average 15,000 fans or undergo a review to determine if they should remain in the division. In Amherst, UMass averaged 13,005 fans a game last year but did draw more than 32,000 for a game at Gillette against the University of New Hampshire, which probably accounted for a high portion of the fans in attendance because of proximity. Will a November meeting with University of Toledo draw the same numbers?
Also, UMass and MAC officials touted the potential for bowl appearances as an additional source of revenue. But the MAC has agreements with three minor bowls that each pay the NCAA minimum $750,000 per team for an appearance, nowhere near the millions that teams that go to the Bowl Championship Series sites garner. The money is shared among all conference schools, who also share the costs of travel for the bowl teams. Several studies, including this one last year in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, found most schools that go to non-BCS bowls lose money after all the expenses are in.
UMass has been losing about $3 million a year over the last few years and now moving to the MAC and playing home games in Gillette will add on to the travel budget. Add in the additional scholarships and it’s an open question as to where the money will come from if not the state.