🗣 UMass to the MAC: Dedicated Thread

[Rolling Ridge]

You said if people don’t go it doesn’t mean they don’t care “it just means they’re not going to spend precious time on a team that’s no fun to watch”

I’m sorry but if that’s the reason people aren’t going they don’t care.

Bullshit.

[Steve81]

2007 had 1: 5224 vs Fordham it was the day after Thanksgiving IIRc.

2006 had 2: 5388 vs Lafayette (possibly day after thanksgiving?) and 17000 vs UNH that I unfortunately missed due to taking the GREs that day

No other homepage playoff games in that stretch.

Do agree with Rolling Ridge that we can suck at football for over a decade and still have numbers comparable to successful FCS years says a lot about the stickiness of football fans and how much they care. It's not the only metric on how they care, but the ability to have an ESPN Football contract and not stadium or Flo Sports is recognition by our media partners.

[minutefanjsf]

The big Razor was a big time failure. The optics of 12k in the stadium were horrid.

I'm not really disputing that, I'm simply saying that failure doesn't translate into certainty that Eastern MA doesn't care about UMass football. Had the team played better there might have been more fans there, and it wouldn't have looked so bad.

The fan base the first couple of years at Gillette was mainly all Eastern MA fans. Almost 20 k for a game vs Miami Ohio-band day. No students went to those games. Many of the Western MA fanbase from early 2000’s is gone-older. I’ve had ST since 1999. I’m just over 50. It seems to me that precovid, there were as many if not more fans watching a horrible FBS product than those watching a stellar FCS product. They don’t have to set the world on fire to get people to come. Regional visiting teams, like Army are also great. That game after Thanksgiving last year may have had the biggest crowd (last year) and there were no students at the game or on campus.

[eldonabe]

If the failed Gillette experiment did not say all that needs to be said, nothing will. Eastern part of the state does not really care unless Umass is REALLY good.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think there was some excitement for this at first and I remember some well attended games (Vandy, for example). I got a lot of people to got to games in that first and second season at Gillette, even folks who weren't that into UMass but thought it was cool to go to Gillette for some football. Few returned because the games were largely so lopsided and boring. I don't think the team needed to be REALLY good... I just think they needed to not be REALLY bad, which they were. That basically killed it. I think if they had at least been average, more people might have stuck with it, and if they had improved year-to-year, they might have been able to grow the audience. Sadly, we'll never know.

You are going to use the first two FBS game in their history to back disagreement that Gillette was a failure?

Failed restaurants have a great opening week 99% of the time too.... but still failed.

[Rolling Ridge]

If the failed Gillette experiment did not say all that needs to be said, nothing will. Eastern part of the state does not really care unless Umass is REALLY good.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think there was some excitement for this at first and I remember some well attended games (Vandy, for example). I got a lot of people to got to games in that first and second season at Gillette, even folks who weren't that into UMass but thought it was cool to go to Gillette for some football. Few returned because the games were largely so lopsided and boring. I don't think the team needed to be REALLY good... I just think they needed to not be REALLY bad, which they were. That basically killed it. I think if they had at least been average, more people might have stuck with it, and if they had improved year-to-year, they might have been able to grow the audience. Sadly, we'll never know.

You are going to use the first two FBS game in their history to back disagreement that Gillette was a failure?

They played Vandy at Gillette in year two of FBS, not year one.

Again, I'm not arguing that Gillette wasn't a failure, I'm simply saying that failure does not mean that Eastern MA fans had no interest. Had there been a better product on the field, attendance numbers and interest would likely have been higher, especially as the season wore on. I don't think the team would have needed to be REALLY good in order to achieve that. An average team with a better compete level might have achieved that.

Looking back at those Gillette attendance numbers, they're not markedly different from playing in Amherst during the FCS glory days of the 2000s. If it’s true that the majority of the audience at Gillette was Eastern, MA fans, I think that speaks to a pretty decent level of interest that simply went untapped because the team was so bad.

[eldonabe]

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think there was some excitement for this at first and I remember some well attended games (Vandy, for example). I got a lot of people to got to games in that first and second season at Gillette, even folks who weren't that into UMass but thought it was cool to go to Gillette for some football. Few returned because the games were largely so lopsided and boring. I don't think the team needed to be REALLY good... I just think they needed to not be REALLY bad, which they were. That basically killed it. I think if they had at least been average, more people might have stuck with it, and if they had improved year-to-year, they might have been able to grow the audience. Sadly, we'll never know.

You are going to use the first two FBS game in their history to back disagreement that Gillette was a failure?

They played Vandy at Gillette in year two of FBS, not year one.

Again, I'm not arguing that Gillette wasn't a failure, I'm simply saying that failure does not mean that Eastern MA fans had no interest. Had there been a better product on the field, attendance numbers and interest would likely have been higher, especially as the season wore on. I don't think the team would have needed to be REALLY good in order to achieve that. An average team with a better compete level might have achieved that.

Looking back at those Gillette attendance numbers, they're not markedly different from playing in Amherst during the FCS glory days of the 2000s. If it’s true that the majority of the audience at Gillette was Eastern, MA fans, I think that speaks to a pretty decent level of interest that simply went untapped because the team was so bad.

You are making everyone's point... The Football team sucks. This is not the south where PeeWee football has more support than Umass football.

You seem to be hung up on the words "Support" and "Care" (or interest). One does not necessarily equate to the other. Massachusetts is the quintessential bandwagon state.

When UMass is good more people go - that is interest disguised as support.

When Umass stinks and people still go - that is support and interest.


This state, time and time again, has proven they do not really support Umass Athletics. Oh boy Eastern part of the state reads about Umass football.... That is like putting out an "I Stand for Ukraine" in your front yard...... Virtue signaling is not Supporting.


Look we can go round and round on this, the bottom line is Umass needs to win some fucking games and then frankly I could give a shit where people come from to watch their games as long as there is more life and even a little excitement in the building.

If Umass cannot get another win in their next two games the depression scale will double up again in Ammmherst

[Rolling Ridge]

You seem to be hung up on the words "Support" and "Care" (or interest). One does not necessarily equate to the other.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make. I argued that you can care about the team, but not necessarily support them by going to games, and that not going to games is exacerbated by how bad the team has been. One does not equate to the other. There are other measures of support that have improved markedly during our FBS tenure. That, to me, is evidence that people do care, but that caring doesn't equate to support in terms of ticket sales (or perhaps actual attendance, as some may purchase season tickets, and decide not to go when the team proves to be so awful). So, we agree.

Is there a "bandwagon" element to that? Sure. I'm not denying that. Again, we agree. All that says to me is that we won't really know the upside potential of UMass FBS football until the team starts winning, and that looking at attendance over the last 10-ish years is a bit of a red herring. If the team improves and starts to win consistently and attendance does not go up correspondingly, I'll be proven wrong and I'll change my position. But until then, we simply don't know. We don't know what support really might look like in Eastern or Western MA with an average or winning program, and the dismal period we've been through isn't evidence that there's no potential support for the team.

I'm not clear what's so controversial about that.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

You seem to be hung up on the words "Support" and "Care" (or interest). One does not necessarily equate to the other. Massachusetts is the quintessential bandwagon state.

To be fair to RR, jjmc was the one that really dug into the "care" thing that has caused RR's responses.

[eldonabe]

I'm not clear what's so controversial about that.

Nothing actually.


It seems that people here get pretty uptight pretty quickly when the mention of lack of Eastern Mass support / interest comes up.


From my own vantage point (and mine alone) - Gillette had 2 or 3 decent attendance games (for a bad product on the field) and the rest were pretty dismal. The selling point of that move (to Gillette) was to build some Eastern Ma supporters. IMO - if that geographic cared, they would have shown better at a time when a new FBS program was trying to get their feet under them - they did not.

At that point not only did they not really get any traction there, they alienated the students on campus simultaneously. I understand the logistics of needing to fix up their concrete barn a little bit, they had no choice. Unfortunately that whole period of time played out about as badly as it could have.


Don Brown is not only fighting today, he is fighting a decade-plus of "suckitude". Yay they won Game Zero, then they lay a couple eggs.... Same old Umass I guess... Pass the potatoes.

That is a hard culture to change over night - I think he is getting close to at least a level of respectability, but they are not there yet and they lack of support (eastern and western) is not helping.



[and IV - yes point taken on jjmc]

[InnervisionsUMASS]

^

Hard to disagree... I think the plan was thought out well enough and it was meant to do good... but execution of it (mainly being the team showing improvement in the first few years) did not go so well. That gave the EMass fans no reason to show up, gave the WMass fans no reason to go east, and gave the students no reason to make the trek off campus. The school doubled down on that by initially alienating WMass fans further with parking and tailgating restrictions upon returning to McGuirk, nevermind it still being a dump.




As an aside to the Gillette years, remember when we got a penalty for the music being too loud? That was just... something.

[69MG]

he is fighting a decade-plus of "suckitude"

I hope that makes it to Webster's new word list this year.

[eldonabe]

^
Hard to disagree... I think the plan was thought out well enough and it was meant to do good... but execution of it (mainly being the team showing improvement in the first few years) did not go so well. That gave the EMass fans no reason to show up, gave the WMass fans no reason to go east, and gave the students no reason to make the trek off campus. The school doubled down on that by initially alienating WMass fans further with parking and tailgating restrictions upon returning to McGuirk, nevermind it still being a dump.

And that main course was served with a side of Charlie Molnar.... Possibly THE worst athletic hire in this history of Umass sports.


I still get douche` chills every time I think of that Big Boy football presser.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Morris and Molnar back-to-back really fucking sucked.

[UMass'96]

You’re not seeing elevated attendance because the team isn’t good. It’s the same issue with basketball. That doesn’t mean people don’t care, it just means they’re not going to spend precious time on a team that’s no fun to watch.

I think we have different definitions of caring. If someone is not willing to at least buy a ticket to at least one game and their reason is because they aren’t going to spend their time on the team they think is no fun to watch, then I’d say they don’t care about the team.

Well, I think that's a bit extreme. Until recently, I lived in the Boston area. I love the Red Sox. I've been watching them since I was a kid and I go to games with some regularity, but I wasn't strongly motivated to buy a ticket to see the team that they've put on the field over the past couple of years. It's clear I'm not alone in this, but that doesn't mean I, or others, don't care about the Red Sox anymore. It is absolutely possible to care a lot about a team, but not attend games because it's just no fun to do so.

It may also be the case that many people buy a UMass football ticket and go to a game to show support of the team and that this has helped buoy attendance numbers, which according to your own figures have been, on average, essentially the same as the prior 10-ish years of FCS. Who knows?

Support - I buy 5 season tix but rarely ever go to the games. Some because I live 2 hours away, some because the product on the field has been frustrating enough watch on TV, let alone in person.

But, I buy season tix to show support. I won't give to NIL.

[Quann]

UMass needs to name a football game day czar (I’d nominate IV) to take control of the whole game day experience surrounding mcguirk from better parking access and small improvements to the interior of the stadium. The 2000s were probably they heyday for tailgating around mcguirk. The experience felt big time (pre FBs), I’ve got many great memories from that period. Since then UMass seems to do everything to sabotage that game day experience in Amherst.