KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

OBRAM wrote: ↑8 months ago https://www.masslive.com/umassfootball/ ... -much.html

"Oct. 14 at Penn State: $1.6 million The contract also calls for a home and home men’s basketball series."

A couple of years ago when Rhody had a buy game scheduled at Va Tech announced, I responded to KMac's tweet about it saying, they should have gotten creative and tried to get a home and home for basketball with it. His response was something like, "why, so they could get destroyed?" So small minded.

It's great that they're making $1.95 million to play at Auburn and $1.6 million to play at Penn State but for that they get a home and home basketball series with Penn State and home games against Miami (OH), New Mexico, Arkansas State, Toledo, Merrimack, and UConn.

They get $1.9 million to play at Georgia next year, but their home games are Eastern Michigan, Wagner, Missouri, Army, Liberty, and UConn.

They get $1.7 million to play at Iowa in 2025, but their home games so far are Temple, Buffalo, Troy, and Bowling Green.

They get $1.6 million to play at Rutgers in 2026, but their home games so far are Northern Illinois, Liberty, and Army.

They get $1.4 million to play Indiana in 2027, but their home games so far are Troy, Buffalo, and UConn.

Look, it's great they're making a lot of money from buy games, but in the process they're nuking any chance of building a fanbase because there are no rivalries outside of UConn football and nothing to play for as a bottom tier independent. How many home games can even be classified as interesting? And what happens as the super conferences build and there's less out of conference games to schedule?

They need a conference and they need it a decade ago. If they refuse to do that, it's time for them to give up the ghost and drop back to the CAA, if the conference will have them

At least as of 2021, the yearly football budget for UMass football is around $10 million. Gotta take a lot of paid ass whoopings to make the math work on that. I guess I'm just pessimistic on the ability of UMass (and UConn) to ever consistently win at the highest level in football, without having a local talent base to really recruit from. Almost no college sports turn a profit or break even - you have them for other reasons - but that doesn't mean you have to willingly get your head kicked in, in a higher division each year.

"- but that doesn't mean you have to willingly get your head kicked in"

Not that it matters,but UMASS FB looked really good last weekend.

As a very casual URI football fan I actually like the buy games. Yeah, we usually get our teeth kicked in, but I enjoy seeing URI go up against more prominent college football programs. Rhody has come close to pulling some upsets over the years, 2011 at Syracuse and 2017 at Central Michigan come to mind.

Brian Forster wrote: ↑8 months ago "- but that doesn't mean you have to willingly get your head kicked in"

Not that it matters,but UMASS FB looked really good last weekend.

Against another team in the running for worst FBS team

STC wrote: ↑8 months ago As a very casual URI football fan I actually like the buy games. Yeah, we usually get our teeth kicked in, but I enjoy seeing URI go up against more prominent college football programs. Rhody has come close to pulling some upsets over the years, 2011 at Syracuse and 2017 at Central Michigan come to mind.

I like them as a one off, and then we can get on with a full conference schedule and games against an in-state rival. When the buy game is the biggest part of your schedule and you really have nothing to play for that changes the calculus

STC wrote: ↑8 months ago As a very casual URI football fan I actually like the buy games. Yeah, we usually get our teeth kicked in, but I enjoy seeing URI go up against more prominent college football programs. Rhody has come close to pulling some upsets over the years, 2011 at Syracuse and 2017 at Central Michigan come to mind.

For URI, I think they work fine as pay-day exhibitions. UMass' whole football program has been an exercise so far in burning money to play FBS. In roughly 11 years of competition, their high for wins in a season is 4 (but really 3 because one win each year wasn't against an FBS opponent). If I did the math correctly, they have 22 wins and 103 losses in that time frame.

i'd do a lot worse than lose some football games for $1m