UMass’ NIL Collectives excited about move to the MAC: “If we get this right, we have a bright future” by Garrette Cote Daily Hampshire Gazette.
First half of article:
Quote:AMHERST — All signs pointed to something happening soon, but Corey Schneider had no idea it would be that soon.
At a Feb. 22 event held at the UMass Club in Boston, nearly the entire UMass Board of Trustees was in attendance – which is fairly unusual, according to Schneider. He was told that night that things had started to move, but he wasn’t exactly sure what that meant.
Schneider’s initial thought? UMass was heading to Conference USA.
The following Monday, he picked up his phone and called UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford to pick his brain about the athletics department’s golf tournament in August. Bamford sounded preoccupied, and, quite frankly, a little overwhelmed. Not really paying attention to the call, Bamford told Schneider he had to go.
So Schneider scrolled on his phone, opening up Twitter/X to poke around. The first post he saw filled him with pure excitement and elation.
The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported that UMass would be joining the Mid-American Conference following the 2024-25 season.
Schneider, the head of The Midnight Ride Collective – UMass’ donor-driven NIL football collective –finally had the news that he and presumably all of the Minutemen football fanbase had been waiting for.
“I immediately was like, ‘That son of a b****,’ but in a good way,” Schneider said, referring to his talk with Bamford. “I honestly think that people still don't fully grasp how important and impactful this move is for UMass as a whole. Not just for football, but the potential this has for all of our athletics.”
The move doesn’t just have an impact on UMass athletics, it’s already had a tremendous influence on both The Midnight Ride and The Massachusetts Collective, UMass’ NIL basketball collective.
Since Monday’s news, both collectives have reached weekly numbers they’ve never seen before. The two groups saw record-breaking 24-hour totals as well as single-week totals, and each have had handfuls of new members join.
“Both collectives are having a great week, and I think that speaks to the alumni base, in general, their appetite and want to win,” Schneider said. “I think that also sends a message to UMass as well, that like people are expecting to win and they want to win.”
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, facility consortium and our Chancellor jumped in as he was a product of the facility consortium. Not positive if was called facility consortium, but was about building the next department head, 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.
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.
(This post was last modified: 03-07-2024 05:06 PM by Steve1981.)
