Universities Chase Big-Time Glory in F.B.S.

“You’ve got to get to Gillette,” they read in beseechingly bold lettering.

This year, UMass took the mighty step up to big-time college football, shedding its lower-level pedigree to enter the sport’s highest tier, the Football Bowl Subdivision. To make the leap more concrete, UMass decided to play its home games at Gillette Stadium, the domain of the N.F.L.’s New England Patriots.

When UMass completed its Gillette home schedule last month, the campus banners — part of nearly $3 million in new football expenditures — had apparently gone unheeded. There were only 6,385 fans in a stadium that seats 68,756 as UMass lost, 42-21, to Central Michigan to finish the season 0-5 at home. UMass finished the season 1-11 over all and was outscored by opponents, 482-152.

Such is the big time, where the newcomers take a beating and a vast majority of established football programs lose money just like their lesser-level brethren.

But UMass and a flock of other institutions with far-reaching football dreams — from Texas State to Old Dominion — are undeterred.

In an unforeseen convergence, nearly a dozen institutions of limited football renown are trying to force their way into the cutthroat, unrestrained arena dominated by college football monoliths like Alabama, Notre Dame and Oregon — universities that will be on display as the sport’s most prestigious bowl games are held over the next eight days. As many as 15 other institutions across the country are publicly or privately discussing such a move.

Big-time college football programs may have been linked recently to scandals involving illicit payments to players (Ohio State), academic improprieties (North Carolina) and child sexual abuse (Penn State), but that has not slowed a rush to join the fraternity. The institutions chasing a new football status do so with baby steps and varied circumstances, but the common journey has a visionary end — some would call it illusionary — and it is a wonderland of television riches, national exposure and ecstatic alumni donating money by the bushel.

“The reality is that football schools who move up a division almost always lose even more money,” said Daniel Fulks, an accounting professor at Transylvania University who has spent the last 15 years as a research consultant for the N.C.A.A. “There’s not much defense of the economics in the short term or the long term. There are arguments for countervailing, intangible benefits — more national exposure, more admission applications, better quality students and increased alumni donations.

“That has definitely happened in some places, but it’s not a proven outcome. Some studies say it does work that way, some studies say it does not. There’s the risk.”

As the president of Tulane, Scott Cowen might seem one of the winners in the pursuit of big-time football status. Cowen’s institution was recently invited to join the Big East, one of the six elite college conferences that divide up the most lucrative postseason game revenues. But Cowen cautioned those universities eager to join the chase for the brass ring of college athletics.

“What any school moving up in football should ask itself is this: what are the real costs of the benefits?” Cowen said. “You will get more visibility and exposure, and at first, that seems like a very good investment. The problem is that once you wade in for keeps at the F.B.S. level, you face facility improvements, escalating coaching salaries, added staff and more athletic scholarships.

“The cost curve is extremely steep, and unless you’re in a power conference, the revenue is flat.”

This year, Texas State and Texas-San Antonio (as a transitional member) joined UMass as first-timers in the top tier of college football. Georgia State and the University of South Alabama will make the move next year.

Old Dominion, which reinstated football in 2009, and North Carolina-Charlotte, which will play its first football game next year, will be full-time F.B.S. members in 2015. Liberty, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern would like to make the move and are awaiting an invitation from a F.B.S. conference, which is required to join the top tier. But such invitations are not hard to come by in a climate in which conferences restructure almost weekly. Other universities that have discussed taking a leap of faith upward include, among others, James Madison, Delaware, Northern Iowa, Cal-Poly, Villanova, Jacksonville State, Northern Arizona and Sam Houston State. There are already about 125 F.B.S.-level football teams.

Making the Move

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