I have not seen any official public announcement from the school about Bamford receiving a contract extension. But, if his contract was officially extended and the deal was completed as a backroom, dark deal outside of any public debate or transparency, I share the outrage that others have eloquently voiced.
How the hell do you justify an extension when the following objective, performance metrics expose the level of his undeniable failed leadership…
Financial Performance:
According to UMass’ financial statements submitted to the NCAA for fiscal year 2025 and as reported by the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Financial Database, the UMass Athletic department ran up an operating deficit of $60m during 2025-add in annual debt service charges for athletic department capital projects and that is an additional $4.5m.
For comparative purposes, the $60m was the worse operating performance/p&l loss of any athletic department in the FBS during 2025. How was the loss balanced? No surprise here-taxpayers ($49m) and student fees ($11m) were forced to shoulder the $60m deficit burden by subsidizing 80% of the total athletic expenditures. At UMass the so-called revenue sports of football and basketball are running at a deficit under Bamford’s watch.
So UMass is paying this guy $1m per year to run the highest deficit of any athletic department in the FBs division? If this guy was employed in the private sector he would have lead his organization into chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and probably liquidation.
If you don’t believe the extent of the financial incompetence within the athletic department at UMass, here is an excellent article from Sportico the highly respected online platform that focuses on the business aspects of professional and college sports that lays out the financial mismanagement in the UMass Athletic Department.
https://www.sportico.com/leagues/colleg ... 234882291/
On-Field Performance:
Is there a better annual comparative tool than the Learfield Director’s Cup Award Ranking (formerly the Sears Cup) to gauge the on-field success of a university’s broad range of athletic teams including Olympic sports? Yes, the Learfield’s Ranking System is somewhat of an imperfect tool inherently favoring the Ohio State’s and Stanford’s of the collegiate sports world who sponsor 36 teams to UMass’ 21, but directionally it provides some good insight about the extent of on-field performance for a school’s total athletic department.
Where did UMass finish in the 2025 final standings? #219 out of a total of 254 Division 1 schools who qualified-the 14th percentile! Take a look at some of the athletic power houses that finished ahead of Bamford’s Athletic Department.
https://nacda.com/documents/2026/6/24/25.26DI_Final.pdf
Graduation Rates:
Bamford was hired in 3/15. So the 4-year NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for the 4-year cohorts starting in 2016, 2017, 2022 are not only the most recent data available from the NCAA but are the most relevant data points that reveal UMass Athletes success in the classroom during this guy’s tenure.
How does UMass’ GSR scores compare to other Division 1 programs? No surprise, graduation rates at UMass are slightly below the NCAA Division 1 norms…
2016: 90% D1/88% UM
2017: 91% D1/90% UM
2018: 90% D1/89% UM
Are Meehan, Reyes and The Board of Trustees really going to extend an AD at a salary of +$1m who; oversees the largest budget shortfall/p&l loss in the FBS Division, who leads a program that ranks in the 14th percentile in a widely respectable national athletic department on-field ranking system and whose GSR is somewhat below norms?
