Search the Community

AMHERST, Mass. Hung from lampposts and tacked to bulletin boards, the maroon and white banners were everywhere this past fall on the pastoral campus of the University of Massachusetts. This year, UMass took the mighty step up to big-time college football, shedding its lower-level pedigree to enter the sports highest tier, the Football Bowl Subdivision. To make the leap more concrete, UMass decided to play its home games at Gillette Stadium, the domain of the N.F.L.s New England Patriots. When UMass completed its Gillette home schedule last month, the campus banners part of nearly $3 million in new football expenditures had apparently gone unheeded. There were only 6,385 fans in a stadium that seats 68,756 as UMass lost, 42-21, to Central Michigan to finish the season 0-5 at home. UMass finished the season 1-11 over all and was outscored by opponents, 482-152. Such is the big time, where the newcomers take a beating and a vast majority of established football programs lose money just like their lesser-level brethren. But UMass and a flock of other institutions with far-reaching football dreams from Texas State to Old Dominion are undeterred. In an unforeseen convergence, nearly a dozen institutions of limited football renown are trying to force their way into the cutthroat, unrestrained arena dominated by college football monoliths like Alabama, Notre Dame and Oregon universities that will be on display as the sports most prestigious bowl games are held over the next eight days. As many as 15 other institutions across the country are publicly or privately discussing such a move. Big-time college football programs may have been linked recently to scandals involving illicit payments to players (Ohio State), academic improprieties (North Carolina) and child sexual abuse (Penn State), but that has not slowed a rush to join the fraternity. The institutions chasing a new football status do so with baby steps and varied circumstances, but the common journey has a visionary end some would call it illusionary and it is a wonderland of television riches, national exposure and ecstatic alumni donating money by the bushel. The reality is that football schools who move up a division almost always lose even more money, said Daniel Fulks, an accounting professor at Transylvania University who has spent the last 15 years as a research consultant for the N.C.A.A. Theres not much defense of the economics in the short term or the long term. There are arguments for countervailing, intangible benefits more national exposure, more admission applications, better quality students and increased alumni donations. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/sports/ncaafootball/universities-chase-big-time-glory-in-fbs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0