… I’ve wanted the University of Southern Mississippi (you owe it to yourself to read the entire article, plus the letter at the end) to be stupider than the University of Massachusetts. I’ve assumed that that deep south school would obviously be dumber than a school in my enlightened part of the country.
Yet they’re actually neck and neck. They’re actually destroying themselves at the same rate, for the same reason. They’re both sports fuck-ups.
6,385 people showed up for U Mass’s most recent football game — played far from campus in Gillette Stadium (where the big boys play!), which offers 68,756 seats.
So let’s see. UD stinks at math, but… 6,385 / 68,756… That’s, uh (pause for phone call to Mr UD) … 9.3%!!!
OR (pause for visit to Percentage Calculator) … that’s 9.2864622723835%!!!!
Of course, “students and taxpayers [are] picking up the tab.”
General Subbaswamy has announced from his bunker that “we haven’t completely mobilized the alumni yet.” His last job was at the University of Kentucky, so he knows university sports.
***************
UD thanks Andre.
December 12th, 2012 at 12:42PM
I love how the Globe article says “No one responsible for investing millions of public dollars to upgrade the University of Massachusetts Amherst football program and move the team’s home games to Gillette Stadium saw this coming.” Evidently they didn’t read the UMass student newspaper:
dailycollegian.com/2011/09/07/change-of-future-home-for-minutemen-disappoints-student-fan-base/
December 12th, 2012 at 12:52PM
Dave: That article is dated September 07, 2011. Students gave the fools a year’s warning.
December 12th, 2012 at 2:02PM
Not only students. There were plenty of faculty, myself included, who could see this coming. Some of them said so to the administration, at the Faculty Senate meetings of May 5, 2011, and September 15, 2011 (see especially the comments by Michael Sugerman and the question by Steven Brewer).
http://www.umass.edu/senate/fs/Minutes/2011-2012/708TH_MINUTES_09-15-11.pdf
It came up again at our Faculty Senate meeting yesterday, though parliamentary maneuvering and low attendance by faculty senators prevented the introduction of a motion to withdraw from FBS football. And it will come up again.
December 12th, 2012 at 2:26PM
Brian: Many thanks for those details!
December 12th, 2012 at 9:14PM
To gain revenue, Massachusetts will be playing those away games at two major powers, Kansas State and Wisconsin. There might be a good visitor’s guarantee for the accountants, there may also be some injured players for the athletic trainers.
Later in their season, Jordan Lynch and the Bowl Crashing Huskies will be playing at Foxboro. There probably aren’t a lot of Northern Illinois alumni in the Boston area. When Northern Illinois plays a game at Chicago’s Soldier Field, usually hosting a Big Ten team, the fans of the visiting team often outnumber the fans of the putative home team.
It’s all amateur sport, though. It has nothing to do with money.
December 13th, 2012 at 9:56AM
I don’t understand. Division IA (FBS) schools are required to maintain average home attendance of 15,000 to stay in IA. Where is the NCAA to enforce that rule?
December 13th, 2012 at 10:14AM
Crystal: Exactly. This is the first year U Mass has done this clever thing. I think the NCAA will probably give it another year. See this post:
http://blogs.bostonmagazine.com/boston_daily/2012/12/12/umass-football-foxboro-holes-attendance/
December 13th, 2012 at 2:16PM
This is a really good point, Crystal. (The abomination that is) UAB football, for example, only survives in Div I because the (nearly bankrupt) city of Birmingham buys the tickets. This results in all sorts of political chicanery: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/08/birmingham_city_council_holds_2.html
I wonder how common this arrangement is? It certainly doesn’t pass the smell test, but it does not violate any rules.
December 13th, 2012 at 7:15PM
Crystal, I’m not sure if it’s average home attendance, or average attendance. If it’s the latter, that explains the mid-majors selling wins to the big name schools by consenting only to play at the big name stadium, or hiring the use of a professional stadium for a home game in name only (see Bowling Green hosting Ohio State in Cleveland and Northern Illinois hosting Iowa in Chicago).