The Mid-American Conference board voted to add UMass as an all-sports member beginning in 2025-26, a person briefed on the discussions said.
UMass was previously in the MAC as a football-only member from 2012-15. The school and the conference parted ways because UMass declined to bring all of its sports to the conference. The school has been hesitant to leave the Atlantic 10, a conference in which it was a founding member.
UMass football won an FCS national championship in 1998 and reached the championship game in 2006, but it has struggled since moving up to FBS in 2012, never winning more than four games in a season. Coach Don Brown, who led that 2006 team, is 4-20 in two seasons in his second stint leading the program.
The men’s basketball team, which is led by former South Carolina coach Frank Martin, hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2014. They’re 17-10, the program’s most wins since 2015. The women’s basketball team won 53 games in the previous two seasons but is currently 3-26. Ice hockey plays in the Hockey East Association, separate from any A-10 to MAC move.
This will be the first full membership addition for the MAC since 1998 when it added Buffalo. The conference briefly had UCF, Temple and UMass as football-only members since then.
The MAC considered…
