(08-10-2014 08:19 AM)pesik Wrote:  Massachusetts population has 7 million not 3

and most state flagships arent located in the metros but in college towns but still control the states markets...

if umass ever becomes competitive, they will control a huge portion of the mass market..

Just a little side note: state "flagships" in the northeast do not mean the same thing as they do in the south or some others areas of the country. In the mid-Atlantic, and especially the northeast, often private schools are more popular, and are even at times the school of choice. That is how schools like Boston College or Syracuse can be more popular in their region than the public schools, or "flagships." It's also a big reason why the C7/Big East schools are so much more popular than similarly sized schools in other areas of the country.

Where I live in now (Louisville) for the most part, only affluent people consider sending their kids to private schools. When I lived in Baltimore, many middle class people expected to send their kids to private school, unless there was no choice. Different mindset.

(08-11-2014 10:09 AM)wave97 Wrote:  You are saying "If you build it, they will come".
All that I am saying is as it relates to Amherst, MA; "If you build it, they won't come".
I would much rather have the AAC go after a dynamic up & coming program: Old Dominion.
ODU & the Virginia Peninsula's large entertainment starved population & very fertile recruiting ground.

I went to Umass undergrad, grew up in the Boston suburbs, had BC season tickets and now have lived in NOLA for 6 years. You are correct that college football is not a big deal but to say there is no interest is way over the top. The main reason is there isn't a local team to root for, BC is too small, a pain in the ass to get in/out of and just doesn't resonate with middle class New England families.

If UMass gets serious and takes on the risk of building a real OCS and scaling up road access, there is real potential. They have to improve drastically on the field and their assets, then the AAC would come calling. UMass is a known national entity as far as TV contract negotiations go, the ODU's of the world just don't have the same brand potential.

For now you absolutely do not consider UMass until they get their football stadium situation fixed and win some games.....and again I went to Umass undergrad.

Finally, when UMass Bball made their run under Calipari, the interest level was greater than any of the many top25 BC Bball or FBall teams. The situation is very similar to what UConn has become in their market.

(08-11-2014 10:09 AM)wave97 Wrote:  You are saying "If you build it, they will come".
All that I am saying is as it relates to Amherst, MA; "If you build it, they won't come".
I would much rather have the AAC go after a dynamic up & coming program: Old Dominion.
ODU & the Virginia Peninsula large entertainment starved population & very fertile recruiting.

odu would be competing a powerhouse in VT and the flagship in UVA..i have a hard time seeing odu surpassing either

as of today odu would be the better add, but if we are talking a league that is going to be built around the premise of "potentially forever" and we are picking on long term potential..
umass is the pick

Virginia and Massachusetts are similar in population, 1 has potential to be #1 the other at best is #3..umass is the flagship and honestly wouldnt take much to surpass BC and be the state's top school

and as a a state flagship they represent the entire state (ie do you judge Florida state's value on Tallahassee which isnt remotely close to majority of the Florida population, or texas a&m on college station?) their market isnt Amherst but the entire state

if umass strong together a few top 25 seasons on a brand new on-campus stadium it wouldnt surprise me to find out they were averaging 45k+ type attendance .

umass also as the states top public school will be given heavy legislative support if they are deemed worthy

(08-11-2014 10:09 AM)wave97 Wrote:  You are saying "If you build it, they will come".
All that I am saying is as it relates to Amherst, MA; "If you build it, they won't come".
I would much rather have the AAC go after a dynamic up & coming program: Old Dominion.
ODU & the Virginia Peninsula's large entertainment starved population & very fertile recruiting ground.

Actually the UMass fans are saying if you invite us we'll probably build it and maybe our fans will come. They don't get college football up there.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Looks like ODU has a ton of support for their program. If they get that waterfront stadium they are working towards, could be a very attractive option downstream. Umass is a head scratcher. No bathrooms, and you renovate and don't even add any? Man...

(08-11-2014 11:37 AM)Bull Wrote:  Looks like ODU has a ton of support for their program. If they get that waterfront stadium they are working towards, could be a very attractive option downstream. Umass is a head scratcher. No bathrooms, and you renovate and don't even add any? Man...

The no bathrooms thing kills me especially after going to all the Bulls games at Ray Jay the last 5-10 years. But hey if port o potty's are good for the 4 hours of tailgating before and 3 hours after that most fans enjoy i don't see what the big deal is having them in the stadium..... hopefully that gets resolved in the next round of upgrades which should be soon.

UMass will continue upgrading when the opportunity arises at appropriate levels. I am sure the peer institutions will recognize the risk reward benefits they are weighing and judge the school accordingly.

I wonder how AAC & the rest of the non power conference institutions would react if they were given a mandate to increase stadium capacity to a certain level prior to being considered for admission into the SEC, Big 10, PAC, EXC. In my opinion they would investigate the cost, measure it against the reward, and each party would ask for mutual assurance that changes would be made and offers extended within a given time period.

IIRC Cinci is hoping for a Big XII call up or ACC Call Up Stadium with Nippert only holding 35,000 (maybe 40,000 after renovations) they would have a long way to go before being close to http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/...attendnace either the BigXII average of 59,000 or ACC with 50,000 averages. Would you expect Cinci to spend a couple hundred million on top of the 80 already being spent on renovations just to be stuck in the AAC averaging 32,000 again?

(The above example is not well research and made just to related the point that incremental upgrades based on reasonable return expectations can make sense in a certain situations. I'm fully prepared to be flamed for this point/opinion)

Under Edsall UConn had a smattering of players from New England, Pasqualoni had added many more. We will see how Diaco does with his home-grown talent.
BC has 18 out of 94 players (including walk-ons) from New England.
That will not get it done.

(08-11-2014 12:36 PM)Sam Minuteman Wrote:  

(08-11-2014 11:37 AM)Bull Wrote:  Looks like ODU has a ton of support for their program. If they get that waterfront stadium they are working towards, could be a very attractive option downstream. Umass is a head scratcher. No bathrooms, and you renovate and don't even add any? Man...

The no bathrooms thing kills me especially after going to all the Bulls games at Ray Jay the last 5-10 years. But hey if port o potty's are good for the 4 hours of tailgating before and 3 hours after that most fans enjoy i don't see what the big deal is having them in the stadium..... hopefully that gets resolved in the next round of upgrades which should be soon.

UMass will continue upgrading when the opportunity arises at appropriate levels. I am sure the peer institutions will recognize the risk reward benefits they are weighing and judge the school accordingly.

I wonder how AAC & the rest of the non power conference institutions would react if they were given a mandate to increase stadium capacity to a certain level prior to being considered for admission into the SEC, Big 10, PAC, EXC. In my opinion they would investigate the cost, measure it against the reward, and each party would ask for mutual assurance that changes would be made and offers extended within a given time period.

IIRC Cinci is hoping for a Big XII call up or ACC Call Up Stadium with Nippert only holding 35,000 (maybe 40,000 after renovations) they would have a long way to go before being close to http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/...attendnace either the BigXII average of 59,000 or ACC with 50,000 averages. Would you expect Cinci to spend a couple hundred million on top of the 80 already being spent on renovations just to be stuck in the AAC averaging 32,000 again?

(The above example is not well research and made just to related the point that incremental upgrades based on reasonable return expectations can make sense in a certain situations. I'm fully prepared to be flamed for this point/opinion)

I'm no good at inserting text for a response above, but in reference to the bolded part... I'd respectfully disagree about the horse/cart comment. You upgrade first. UCF, and Tulane did this... Cinci and UofH are doing it to be more attractive to the P5. (Cinci IS spending the money, just going for more suites/$$ as opposed to more cheap seats. Their capacity will be enough.) For the second part of the statement, again, schools are almost universally upgrading to become more attractive. Not demanding an invite, before then considering some expansion of facilities. That's how I'd see the cause/effect situation. Only when someone is drastically raided, to you add 'potential'.

No offense intended, if you are a uMass fan... but I guess you just have to demonstrate that you are serious or comitted. The American (trying to be viewed as a Power conference) would have to be insane to add a school either playing in McGurik, or playing in the Pats stadium a few hours away. What's to stop uMass from taking the invitation and either NOT doing any improvements, or going cheap? Nova tried to do this with the old Big East. They were going to take a BCS invitation and play at an un-expanded PPL Park. Amazing.

My 2 cents.

(08-11-2014 12:36 PM)Sam Minuteman Wrote:  

(08-11-2014 11:37 AM)Bull Wrote:  Looks like ODU has a ton of support for their program. If they get that waterfront stadium they are working towards, could be a very attractive option downstream. Umass is a head scratcher. No bathrooms, and you renovate and don't even add any? Man...

The no bathrooms thing kills me especially after going to all the Bulls games at Ray Jay the last 5-10 years. But hey if port o potty's are good for the 4 hours of tailgating before and 3 hours after that most fans enjoy i don't see what the big deal is having them in the stadium..... hopefully that gets resolved in the next round of upgrades which should be soon.

UMass will continue upgrading when the opportunity arises at appropriate levels. I am sure the peer institutions will recognize the risk reward benefits they are weighing and judge the school accordingly.

I wonder how AAC & the rest of the non power conference institutions would react if they were given a mandate to increase stadium capacity to a certain level prior to being considered for admission into the SEC, Big 10, PAC, EXC. In my opinion they would investigate the cost, measure it against the reward, and each party would ask for mutual assurance that changes would be made and offers extended within a given time period.

IIRC Cinci is hoping for a Big XII call up or ACC Call Up Stadium with Nippert only holding 35,000 (maybe 40,000 after renovations) they would have a long way to go before being close to http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/...attendnace either the BigXII average of 59,000 or ACC with 50,000 averages. Would you expect Cinci to spend a couple hundred million on top of the 80 already being spent on renovations just to be stuck in the AAC averaging 32,000 again?

(The above example is not well research and made just to related the point that incremental upgrades based on reasonable return expectations can make sense in a certain situations. I'm fully prepared to be flamed for this point/opinion)

bathrooms arent the only problem with mcguirk but a symbol of how outdated that stadium is

a completely renovated mcguirk would likely still be the worst stadium in the league

they need to stop trying to shine a turd and start saving you to build something different, something to be proud about, something that will be used as a reason to why umass is a great addition not something you have to spend millions on just to say "well it's not that bad"

Houston's old stadium wasnt bad and no one ever had a problem with it, and our previous AD just wanted to expand it but our new AD had a vision for a new stadium and now we are using that as a platform for our growth

and your cincy analogy is just as bad cincy at 35k is larger than numerous P5 stadiums. our problem with umass's capacity isnt that its "not to our liking" but the fact that it is way below any standard we'd have before this league
you have the smallest stadium in the MAC, but you think that could be good enough for the AAC? if the old NCAA fbs cap was still active like it was 4 years ago, umass would have to sellout every game just not to be on probation.

literally the MAC, yes the MAC conference wouldn't invite you with that stadium and required you to play 2 hours away in Gillette and spend millions on a press box before theyd even consider you but you think thats good enough for the AAC? we dont need umass to reach our average but atleast match our minimum (which is 30k)

incremental upgrades = UMASS heading back to the fcs, because the AAC would have moved on to other options by them..

also if we were told we might have a chance even a remote chance at p5 if we had a bigger stadium, every team in our league would expand our stadiums...cincy only expanded/renovated their stadium for a chance at p5 and them their president emailed those plans to every acc president

(08-11-2014 01:52 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(08-11-2014 12:36 PM)Sam Minuteman Wrote:  

(08-11-2014 11:37 AM)Bull Wrote:  Looks like ODU has a ton of support for their program. If they get that waterfront stadium they are working towards, could be a very attractive option downstream. Umass is a head scratcher. No bathrooms, and you renovate and don't even add any? Man...

The no bathrooms thing kills me especially after going to all the Bulls games at Ray Jay the last 5-10 years. But hey if port o potty's are good for the 4 hours of tailgating before and 3 hours after that most fans enjoy i don't see what the big deal is having them in the stadium..... hopefully that gets resolved in the next round of upgrades which should be soon.

UMass will continue upgrading when the opportunity arises at appropriate levels. I am sure the peer institutions will recognize the risk reward benefits they are weighing and judge the school accordingly.

I wonder how AAC & the rest of the non power conference institutions would react if they were given a mandate to increase stadium capacity to a certain level prior to being considered for admission into the SEC, Big 10, PAC, EXC. In my opinion they would investigate the cost, measure it against the reward, and each party would ask for mutual assurance that changes would be made and offers extended within a given time period.

IIRC Cinci is hoping for a Big XII call up or ACC Call Up Stadium with Nippert only holding 35,000 (maybe 40,000 after renovations) they would have a long way to go before being close to http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/_/id/...attendnace either the BigXII average of 59,000 or ACC with 50,000 averages. Would you expect Cinci to spend a couple hundred million on top of the 80 already being spent on renovations just to be stuck in the AAC averaging 32,000 again?

(The above example is not well research and made just to related the point that incremental upgrades based on reasonable return expectations can make sense in a certain situations. I'm fully prepared to be flamed for this point/opinion)

bathrooms arent the only problem with mcguirk but a symbol of how outdated that stadium is

a completely renovated mcguirk would likely still be the worst stadium in the league

they need to stop trying to shine a turd and start saving you to build something different, something to be proud about, something that will be used as a reason to why umass is a great addition not something you have to spend millions on just to say "well it's not that bad"

Houston's old stadium wasnt bad and no one ever had a problem with it, and our previous AD just wanted to expand it but our new AD had a vision for a new stadium and now we are using that as a platform for our growth

and your cincy analogy is just as bad cincy at 35k is larger than numerous P5 stadiums. our problem with umass's capacity isnt that its "not to our liking" but the fact that it is way below any standard we'd have before this league
you have the smallest stadium in the MAC, but you think that could be good enough for the AAC? if the old NCAA fbs cap was still active like it was 4 years ago, umass would have to sellout every game just not to be on probation.

literally the MAC, yes the MAC conference wouldn't invite you with that stadium and required you to play 2 hours away in Gillette and spend millions on a press box before theyd even consider you but you think thats good enough for the AAC? we dont need umass to reach our average but atleast match our minimum (which is 30k)

incremental upgrades = UMASS heading back to the fcs, because the AAC would have moved on to other options by them..

also if we were told we might have a chance even a remote chance at p5 if we had a bigger stadium, every team in our league would expand our stadiums...cincy only expanded/renovated their stadium for a chance at p5 and them their president emailed those plans to every acc president

UMass is headed to the Sunbelt first.