Multiple sources are saying the MAC college presidents have voted to accept UMass as a league member.
UMass hockey would stay in Hockey East and social media is saying UMass Lax could petition to stay in A10 lacrosse as an associate member.
In my view, this is a good move for the Minutemen. It's very hard to win with an Independent schedule. Even Army, which is an attractive opponent, could not make it work.
The MAC is a stable, geographically compact Group-of-Five league,
much more so than CUSA or the Sun Belt. In addition, the MAC schools are all public universities with similar institutional cultures. UMass is playing five MAC schools this year and had two scheduled for 2025.
The MAC has multiple bowl tie-ins:
From this article:
The top-ranked MAC champion will be in the mix for the Fiesta, Cotton, or Chick-fil-A Peach if it's the highest-ranked Group of Five champ - and if it's not in the College Football Playoff.
The MAC doesn’t have a true pecking order. The bowls matchups are based on best possible games and geography.
- Bahamas Bowl vs Conference USA
- Camellia Bowl vs American Athletic or Sun Belt
- Famous Idaho Potato Bowl vs Mountain West
- LendingTree Bowl vs Sun Belt
- Barstool Arizona Bowl vs Mountain West
- Quick Lane Bowl vs Big Ten
To be determined among the Group of Five conferences. MAC will get spots in two of these bowls ...
- Duluth Trading Co. Cure Bowl vs Group of Five
- Frisco Bowl vs Group of Five
- Myrtle Beach Bowl vs American Athletic or Sun Belt
- New Mexico Bowl vs Conference USA
- RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl vs Group of Five
The MAC has a media package from ESPN that reportedly pays about $8 million a year. UMass did not get any media revenue as an Independent.
This is probably more than CUSA's package.
As far as UMass basketball, the Minutemen were contractually obligated to play four MAC games/year back when we were a member of that league. I can't remember UMass losing any of the 16 MAC games we played during our four-year previous stint in the MAC. The idea now is to win the MAC championship and go to the NCAA sometime before the next ice-age. UMass had it's best hoops year in recent memory in 2014 when we played four MAC teams (and beat them all) on route to a 24-9 year.
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Lots of news links, all of them pretty much saying the same thing.
MassLive, UMass joining the MAC
The Hampshire Gazette has a post on the move. The story covers the possible effects on basketball.
Our old friends at Hustle Belt have a story on the move.
Adding UMass will give the MAC an odd number of teams. This article says keep an eye on Western Kentucky.
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