BYU did UMass a favor with a 4 game home and home deal. Per the UMass message board, BYU will be "the biggest opponent to come through McGuirk in a long time, and the top name brand in the FBS era."

BYU also gave UMass a huge favor by agreeing to allow the game to be moved from Foxboro and Gillette Stadium to Amherst, UMass's cozy 17k on campus stadium. I can only imagine that this moved saved UMass tens of thousands of dollars if not more as the ticket sales for last years game couldn't have covered the rental fees for the stadium. Perhaps UMass overestimated BYU's ability to come in and fill the stadium on their own.

For whatever reason, a deal was able to be worked out last year for BYUtv to get show a simulcast of the game. However tough UMass's TV contracts were, they were able to work out something.

This year, for whatever reason, UMass and their TV partners have decided to play hardball and want to try to milk the BYU fans for everything they can. This Flosports option has to be one of the most (if not likely the most) expensive option for college football in the country. From a CBer who tried to watch a basketball game on it a few weeks ago, it also sounds like it is a very poorly put together product (SD quality, poor camera work, no scoreboard, etc). All this despite UMass coming in with the worst team in FBS football.

From my admittedly biased vantage point, it seems that BYU has been nothing but accommodating and UMass has decided to take BYU for everything they are worth and give us the proverbial double bird in gratitude. Hopefully BYU learns a few lessons from this debacle (including better contract negotiations in the future). I also hope BYU uses the disrespect to pound UMass on Saturday and get some small level of revenge for the 2017 debacle.