Home games 100 miles from home not working out so well for UMass Amherst

Teams do this for different reasons.

Even though only about 10-20 D1 programs "make money" on paper, about 50-75 programs actually bring in a lot of money and then spend it on the same facilities, staff, and athletic programs within the same budget. Big football programs also bring in a lot of people to the campus during the week, creates exposure for the school, and these factors don't equate on paper for buget purposes.

But it really comes down to finding other college football programs that have open dates for those 3-5 non league games at the beginning of the season. When Florida looks at their 2019 non leage schedule, they want to make sure it is filled with a mix of teams they can beat, have a home and home schedule with, etc. Florida looks and sees that 25 teams have open dates, and calls these teams and finds out that only 7 of them want to go to Florida to play one game for one season. Florida negotiates with these teams (usually ones they know they can beat, since losing a game could cost them tens of millions in bowl game receipts). Umass fits in for Florida, since there is a 99% chance they should win, but Umass offers a little more than other schools might for the non league game (Boston College might have a 10% chance of winning, Lower division schools effect thier BCS rankings, Umass is a bigger name than Furman, Savanagahh State, Moorehead State, etc,.)

So Florida will pay out about 2 million a year for non leage teams they know they will beat, basically helping their chances for a higher paying BCS Bowl game.

So this year, Alabama, Georgia and Florida compete for the SEC title and a large Bowl Game.

Alabama (and Notre Dame) is looking at a 20-24 million dollar payout for their national championship game, Florida gets about $17 million for playing in the Sugar Bowl, while other SEC teams who lost game during the season get smaller payouts:

Georgia gets 4.5 million for the Capital One Bowl
Vanderbilt gets 2 million for the Music City Bowl
LSU gets 3.5 million for the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

So as you can see, the possiblity of losing one game can cost you 5-15 million dollars for teams like Florida, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, etc.

They were probably close to making money for the state when Calipari was here, but after he left the school/state/taxpayers lost a lot of money.

I think Northeastern and Umass Lowell can see how football isn't going to help them down the road, but other schools find that it helps in other ways (Mt. Ida and Anna Maria colleges basically attract dozens of male tuition students a year). I worked at a NESCAC school once which had 3 alumni who would donate more money per year than the football budget needed for 10 years. These 3 donors wanted a say on who was hired, etc and for all intents and purposed they got it.

The Harvard football staff sits down with program donating alumni every year and goes over the Yale game on film with them explaining the ins and outs of the game planning (much more fun in recent years with Harvard winning).

All in all it is an interesting process that doesn't always make money for schools, but can benefit them in other ways.

http://www.centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploa...

Yet it seems that at many of America’s largest colleges and universities, athletics has become overemphasized at great financial, academic and, arguably, moral costs. The fundamental mission of any university should be to advance the knowledge of its students and society through instruction and research. Athletics are often a distraction, both to the athletes themselves and the wider institution in meeting these primary goals. While graduation rate data are still somewhat murky, the low graduation rates among athletics, particularly in sports like football and basketball, is alarming, although there is strong evidence that this problem is endemic to the entire academic enterprise. The introduction of the Academic Progress Reform (APR) by the NCAA is a positive development that appears to be helping to provide an incentive for coaches and athletes to take academics a bit more seriously. However, there have also been reports of athletes ‘clustering’ in certain academic majors that are less strenuous in order to meet these new standards. If it is the case that certain athletes can only remain eligible for competition by pursuing meaningless academic endeavors, our universities need to reexamine their priorities before granting them admission to an institution of higher education. By admitting sub-standard students, universities compromise their academic integrity and have negative spillover effects on the academic mission.