The University of Massachusetts Amherst athletics department spent over $1.2 million on chartered airplanes this academic year, according to public records obtained by the Amherst Wire. The figure represents a 31% increase from the 2023-24 season. 

UMass’ football team and the Men’s and Women’s basketball teams chartered the aircraft, catered with “athletic beverages and snacks.” According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) 2024 financial report, which details expenditures by university athletic departments, this is only a portion of the $5.3 million that the UMass Athletic Department spent on travel, lodging, and meals. 

These are just some of the costly accommodations afforded to the athletic department as UMass transitions to the Mid-American Conference (MAC). All sports teams besides Men’s ice hockey, which competes in the Hockey East Conference, will have to travel further in fall 2025 to compete in their associated leagues. Most of the schools in the MAC are based in the Great Lakes region, UMass being the sole representative from New England. 

A lucrative, long-term media deal between the MAC and ESPN ensures the UMass Minutemen will be roped into the network’s popular Wednesday Night Football programming.

Doctor Emily Must, Director of Internships and a Senior Lecturer of Sports Management at Isenberg, spoke to the athletics department’s travel expenses. On weekends, she said, it used to be more common for athletic teams to take a bus when traveling out-of-region, “and now, if it’s on a Tuesday, we’re flying in and flying out.” 

In compliance with NCAA’s regulations on countable athletically related activity, student-athletes cannot spend more than 20 hours per week on their sport, which Must says long bus rides could eat into.

According to the Director of Athletics, Ryan Bamford, most varsity teams will continue to travel on commercial flights. However, flying commercial is not feasible for the football team, a party of 180. Instead, for them and the basketball teams, optimizing the turnaround time with private charters is essential, Bamford said.

“We see an increase in our budgets for that purpose in those sports, because those are sports that are generally traveling a further distance, and are expected to turn around and play 72 hours later,” he said.

In the 2024 fiscal year, UMass spent $47.3 million on athletics, including $1.3 million on athletic waivers. For comparison, per the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, MAC schools spent an average of $33.99 million on athletics and $4.04 million on “game expenses and travel” in 2023. 

In contrast, UMass reported $63.8 million in operating revenue to the NCAA. However, included in this figure is direct institutional support, $27.5 million, for athletics and indirect institutional support, $11.2 million, which includes costs for administrative services, facilities and utilities, security, and debt service payments. Without these institutional subsidies, athletics revenue totals $25.1 million. 

Institutional support is predetermined, though it has increased annually. Bamford attributes these increases to rising cost-of-living arrangements with staff unions and increases in tuition, room and board fees–included in student-athlete scholarships–all of which are covered directly by UMass. 

To optimize revenue, the athletic department relies on their football team, who finished their final season as an Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) independent with a win-loss record of 2-10. Despite their repeated underperformance, this past year, UMass spent $11.5 million on the team, nearly 30% of what was spent on all varsity teams.

Why? Because college football generates the most revenue from broadcasting rights. MAC’s media deal with ESPN will pay UMass between 1.5 million to 2.5 million dollars in 2025-26 and between 2 million to 2.5 million dollars in the years that follow, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. When the team travels, in addition to guarantees, UMass receives millions of dollars, regardless of the game’s outcome, according to Must.

“They put money there because it has the best potential to earn revenue,” Must said. “It’s one of those things where you have to make that decision, and then give it time to actualize.”

In reaction to the amount spent on the travel, Must agreed that when isolated, it’s a significant figure, but when you consider the amount of money spent by comparable schools, or even in comparison to the total sum spent by the athletic department, that figure becomes more reasonable. 

However, when it comes to public spending in Massachusetts, the athletics department takes some of the top spots. The second largest expenditure for the athletic department was coaching salaries, benefits and bonuses. In 2024, the highest-paid state employee in Massachusetts was the head basketball coach, Francisco Martin, at $1.8 million. The fourth was Head Football Coach Donald Brown, and Athletic Director Ryan Bamford was seventh.

Annually, coaches earn a base pay previously negotiated in their contracts. They incur additional payments from supplemental compensation in exchange for fulfilling media, sponsorship, and apparel contracts, and bonuses from a number of factors, most notably total wins, championship and tournament appearances, or maintaining academic performance expectations for student-athletes. 

With a base pay of $1.16 million in 2024, Martin’s “other pay” was $656k, according to the statewide payroll of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Transparency and Accounting Reporting Unit. Together, that’s equivalent to the combined instate tuition of roughly 98 students in the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. 

Besides the monetary value of these expenditures, there are opportunity costs. In the face of these deep investments into football, how are UMass’ other athletic teams fairing?

With over 80 club and intramural sports teams, UMass has a significant community of non-varsity student-athletes. Prior to the academic year, club teams submit budget requests, outlining their expenses and why they need it covered. Though UMass provides partial financial support for fall and spring seasons, discrepancies exist between how much is given to each team. 

This past year, the UMass Women’s Rugby Club (UMass WRFC) requested approximately $50k in institutional funding. They ended up only receiving $19k. UMass WRFC’s President, Kate Carroll, believes it’s an issue of popularity, as some club teams receive upwards of $100k.

The absence of funding affects them drastically. Without a stable practice space, the team lacks consistent practice times and access to locations, forcing Carroll to operate on a day-to-day basis. Over the winter, Carroll says UMass WRFC commonly practiced on near-frozen fields, their only alternative being a 10 p.m. time slot in The Bubble, a practice facility primarily reserved by the varsity teams. 

Unfortunately, these aren’t their only struggles. Though they fundraise to compensate for a lack of institutional support, the team has never had funds for transportation. When they travel to tournaments, they instead pile into their teammates’ cars for a drive lasting several hours. Though they compensate the drivers for gas, nothing can be done for the incurred mileage, Carroll said.

It’s uncommon for club teams to generate revenue, let alone profit. However, according to Carroll, their importance shouldn’t depend on if they benefit UMass as a brand, but instead on how they uplift the student body. With no prior experience required, club teams are often accessible ways for students to find friends or even just a group of people with common interests. If UMass intends to continue touting inclusivity and collaboration beyond academics, it’s essential that they ensure the continuation of these extracurricular spaces, Carroll said.

“Soon in the future, those teams might not be able to run at all, because they don’t have any more funding to keep going forward,” Carroll said.

Carroll’s sentiments are echoed throughout the athletic department, which faces a clear issue of its own: there simply isn’t enough funding for students. Denis Deti, a Governor of the Undergraduate Economics Club and an economics major, highlighted a lack of investment in certain student resources like housing, vocational training courses, and the renovation of academic buildings like the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, which is anticipated to open in the fall of 2025.

This is hardly an issue of prioritizing some over others, students told the Wire. In many ways, UMass falls short of satisfying student-athletes as well. Student-athlete scholarships, the largest expense for athletics, are determined primarily by two factors, revenue generation and Title IX compliance. The former is the largest consideration. 

“Football, Men’s basketball, and hockey rarely struggle to offer the full scholarships that they need,” said Brett Albert, a Senior Lecturer of Sports Management at Isenberg. 

Under NCAA standards, Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams can offer 85 full-ride football scholarships. Universities typically offer close to this number to avoid the competitive disadvantage of being less attractive to prospective students. At UMass, of the 179 male student-athletes receiving athletic aid, 78 are football players. 

Beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, if the NCAA’s proposed settlement passes final approval, FBS football programs will instead be allotted 105 equivalency scholarships. Unlike full-rides, coaches can divide equivalency scholarships more flexibly among participating athletes. Bamford told the Wire that this change will not be implemented at UMass. 

“In an indirect sense, having more scholarships for football creates this indirect push to offer more scholarships to women-athletes as well,” Albert said. 

Under Title IX, UMass is required to provide equal access to scholarships for Men’s and Women’s teams, in addition to equalizing opportunities and spending between the two. For instance, under Title IX, if an athletic program is made up of 55% male athletes, no more than 55% of the athletic budget can be distributed to men’s teams. With $7 million invested in athletic aid for male athletes, UMass spent $6.4 million across 203 scholarships for female athletes. 

Nonetheless, shortages still exist in scholarship allotment. In 2024, UMass’ Men’s baseball team reported one student-athlete scholarship with an athletic aid equivalency of 0.13. Plainly, this means one student receives aid equivalent to 13% of a full-ride scholarship. 

“There’s a number of men’s sports that don’t have a lot of scholarship investment there,” Bamford said. “We recognize that our expectations have to match the resources–if we’re not giving them a lot of scholarship dollars, we can’t expect them to be able to compete.”