Chancellor Subbaswamy is proud of being #1 (out of 1858)
It will be interesting to see if Chancellor Subbaswamy gets to keep his top dog #1 UMass license plate, which actually does look lovely on his Lexus.
The Globe says: only 1554 UMass license plates sold. I say: only 1,500 more to Go @AlumniUMass Go UMass! http://t.co/ACIg5CueEy
— Kumble R. Subbaswamy (@KSubbaswamy) May 25, 2015
Chancellor was unconcerned with Boston Globe May 24 story on slow sales
Although I would have liked it a tad better if designers had made room for "Amherst" somewhere on the plate.
The UMass license plate program, making UMass the first university in the state to have one, has been fraught with problems since first being seriously discussed over ten years ago.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles will not even fire up the presses until 1,500 have been preordered and even then an additional 1,500 need to be sold by the end of the second year bringing the total on the road to a minimum of 3,000.
That two year anniversary just passed in October and the current number of plates on the road is only 1,858. Not even close to the 3,000 required.
The Alumni Association had to put up a $100,000 performance bond to guarantee 3,000 plates would be sold so now the state can keep all or part of that.
The University only makes $28 per plate sold and for a while the AA was paying the $40 plate fee and $20 swap fee in order to stimulate sales but even that failed to move numbers in the right direction.
Click to enlarge/read
6/6/15 minutes of Board of Directors meeting
In June the Alumni Association Board of Directors by unanimous vote allocated $150,000 to "support the license plate business plan" to reach the 3,000 goal by October 1st.
Coincidentally enough the Boston Globe did a story on 5/25/15 shining a light on lousy sales using the total figure of 1,554.
Thus an entire summer plus September and October -- and a $150K -- only managed to bring the number up to the current 1858
Will be quite a while before this # sees the road, if ever
And with only 1858 plates sold in our state boasting 120,000 (hopefully proud) UMass/Amherst graduates, that makes for a 1.55% market penetration. I give that an F.
11 comments:
Cite your sources, please. Curious.
The Bostin Globe for one.
It'd help if the design wasn't ugly as hell.
I can't imagine why those who have scaped aren't eager to be reminded of the gulag.....
Whoops, I was wrong. UMASS is $11 million in the hole (not $7 million) and they are wasting time and money to get alumni to buy license plates they don't want.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/10/29/umass-has-cut-nearly-million-from-its-budget/sD9aEy83pdJqx2sY7c6kQP/story.html
Finally, a decent headline. Bravo!
As a UMass Alum I almost bought one but then I saw "Choose Fresh & Local" Plate that's coming and I'd rather have that one. http://www.mafoodplate.org/ Its way more attractive than the UMass plate and I don't feel like supporting a school I'm already working really hard to pay $75k in student debt back to...
We dont let inmates pick their government id numbers after they are caught, it takes a pretty messed up person to pay money for their criminal preid tag. Pay money to have a custom number when busted...or to usethe tag they use to catch criminals to self promote, just odd all around. Then use this to fund education, well that is more than ironic.
There is no reason to have a car plate that would not justify one on your back more. I know, coming soon...
Did you not just violate Three Dog Night's copywright?
Only if I hummed the tune while typing in the headline (and I'll take the 5th on that).
The songwriters credit and copyright belong to Harry Nilsson's estate.
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