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Listen for the past hour, actually 1:20 minutes as almost the first 20 minutes was waiting. Talks started in September, they talk about faculty, academics, academic and leadership consortium and our Chancellor jumped in as he was a product of the academic consortium. About building the next department head, deans, chairs, provost etc while Javier Reyes was at Arkansas in the SEC. Seemed very thoughtful, covering athletics, facility, students, campus vision. Not really much rahrahrah. Commissioner Steinbrecher was quietly on campus during a game in November and disappointed did not seem him.Bluewyn Gold wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 9:29 am A couple of final thoughts about the UMass move to the MAC and how it relates to UD.
According to a report from writer Matt Brown, UD’s decision to join CUSA was not AT ALL incumbent on UM’s potential decision to eventually join. UD would have been happy to have UM join them in CUSA, but it wasn’t a factor one way or another.
There appears to have been a rather sudden change in the MAC presidents’ philosophy, as they were not in favor of expanding as late as December ’23. According to Matt Brown (again), UMass and the MAC were likely talking as early as January ’24, maybe sooner.
You’ll remember that there were reports that UD and the MAC had some membership discussions in ‘23, but no one has said who initiated those talks or when they occurred. We also know that CUSA and UD were communicating for a much longer period than last year, but talks got more serious last summer. Based on this, my perception (not a fact) is that:
a) Colonial expansion compelled UD to reclassify sooner rather than later.
b) Both CUSA and the MAC had some level of interest in UD and vice versa.
c)By October, the signals were clear to UD that the MAC wasn’t in a hurry to expand.
d) UD & CUSA decided to pull the trigger.
e) UD’s move compelled MAC presidents to seek expansion, so consideration was granted to the school in the most immediate need of a conference and with whom they had a prior relationship.
The move makes as much sense as CUSA would have for UMass from the football standpoint and maybe overall. Not sure how well the move aligns with UM hoops, in particular. Time will tell, but that wasn't UM's primary consideration. Some questions might be answered at today's UM-MAC presser.
Interesting to learn that UMass will have to pay a $4M exit fee to the A-10. The fee to join the MAC hasn’t been reported. That puts UD's FBS fees into a little more perspective.
Hey UDel did what was best for them and we did what was best for us. This has a feel of a long term commitment. The investment in athletics will accelerate with 8 to 10 times the conference revenue growth. As our AD said, we are hitting the gas, no brakes. Frank Martin is a real team player, his wife ran track at UMass, football helps raise all programs and their budgets all went up from his career. Don Brown and Frank Martin had offices next to each other at Northeastern. They both recruit in programs that were at the bottom with no bells and whistles. You recruit players that believe in your vision, the school and not the conference.
Do we have fans that would raise a million bucks to give to ONE superstar recruit? Do we have fans that would give money to a kid directly as an NIL bump, or will UD fans contribute NIL money to a “cooperative” (that will take a portion of the cut) that might take the NIL money and distribute it more “fairly” to team members? How in the world will that work? If I want to support a particular player with NIL money, for HIS image (not the team’s image), do I need a UD sponsored conglomerate to do so? Can’t I just ask the kid permission to use his image on t-shirts and give him all of the proceeds for his image, or do I need to go through the company that UD wants to use? 
