Because UMASS is division 2, That can change when they go to D1 and it would certainly change if they were in the Big East. Need proof? Yale had more football fan support in CT than UCONN did in the 80's...and in the 60's Yale had more football fan support than UCONN does now! The world changes, even the sportsworld.
You cannot compare fan support in the 1960's. You also cannot compare fan support in different states with different schools, it's apples and oranges. Plus, Yale is FCS, so saying we eclipsed them isn't saying much. That's not proof. The proof is their marquee sport cannot fill 50% of the big arena in the city they're supposed to be drawing support from in their FBS move. UMass sports are not big here, they are not covered regularly in the newspapers/news stations unless something huge happens. UConn gets significantly more coverage here. As I stated, the 32k at the UMass-UNH game was half UNH fans, and believe me, they promoted that game to hell and were practically giving tickets away. The only seats outside of the lower level that were open were the small group of sections at the 50 yard line, and they did not sellout. The entire upper level and all other balconies were not open. It was also a neutral site game, so tickets were evenly distributed to both schools. Here's a picture from the game:
http://blogs.umass.edu/jack4rl/files/2010/10/2010-10-23-17.41.21.jpg Point: There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that UMass football would ever draw 50K for a game at Gillette in the Big East, unless 25-30K of those people are UConn fans. Likewise, the suggestion that they would pass BC in fan support, even with BC down and being low on the totem pole to the pro teams, is backed by absolutely no facts whatsoever. Hell, Harvard averaged more fans lat year than UMass.
