Established: 1957
Type: Public university
President: Alan G. Merten
Provost: Peter N. Stearns
Faculty: 2,893
Students: 30,332
Undergraduates: 18,589
Postgraduates: 11,743
Location: Fairfax, Virginia,
Arlington, Virginia,
Manassas, Virginia,
Campus: Suburban, 806 acres (3.26 km²) total across all campuses
Colors: Mason Green and Mason Gold
Nickname: Patriots
Mascot: Gunston
Athletics: NCAA Division I, CAA, 22 varsity teams

Current Football Status: Member in good standing in the Club Level Seaboard Football Conference

NFL Killzone? Yes. Washington Redskins

Other Major Pro Sports: NBA Washington Bullets. MLB Washington Nationals. NHL Washington Capitols

Possible Football Venues: Robert F. Kennedy Stadium Will not work as it's in Washington D.C. rather then Virginia. High School Football is big in northern Virginia and at least three Arlington high schools have stadiums of 7,500 or more, enough for FCS while Robinson Field is expanded to 35,000+.

This makes a lot of sense, especially because there is no dominant DC-area college football team. George Mason is much larger than area schools Howard (not an FBS candidate), Georgetown (ditto), Towson (public, but still on the small side). With right timing, George Mason + football would be an excellent candidate for the C-USA someday (or whatever conference the C-USA East teams form).

Well, Towson is technically in the Baltimore MSA, so they're out.

Bowie State is closer, but as an HBCU is still out.

George Mason may find themselves needing to sponsor football to stay in the CAA at some point in the future, given that most of the schools intending to move up or capable of moving up to Division I FBS on the East Coast are in the CAA.

George Mason didn't thrill me as a candidate for FBS, but after really looking at the measureables I am excited.

Academics - Tier 3 - meaning their academics are a neutral.
Flagship - I don't THINK it is considered a flagship, but could be wrong. Virginia assigns flagship status to about 5 different schools, but I think they all are named some equivilant to "the Unversity of Virginia". In any view, they aren't likely to get a flagship esteem bump.
NFL Killzone - They are on the west side of DC in Fairfax, the redskins are on the East in Landover, MD. I think they are far enough away from that they could survive it attendence-wise with little ill effect. They will be an afterthought in local media, but that isn't an FBS killer.
Competitors - DC is pretty much college football free, certainly under served.
DMA - The #9 Washington DMA is a prized catch with over 2.3M TV households.
No Football. Robinson Feild has plenty of space available to be transformed into a great stadium if the will is there.
BB attendance 4492 (5 year ave.) in a 10K Arena.

My feeling is that if GMU moved up and drew 25K+ a conference like CUSA would kill to have them, and frankly there is an outside shot that if they moved up, that the BE football schools would scoop them up and kiss off most of the BB schools.

(How good would BE football look in terms of TV money with FBS UMASS, George Mason, and Temple's DMAs?)

Nope. George Mason is not a flagship. They are classified the next tier down with James Madison, Mary Washington, Christopher Newport, and VMI as "Comprehensive Universities." The Flagships are Virginia (Liberal Arts-Comprehensive), Virginia Tech(Land Grant and Space Grant), William and Mary(Elite Honors College), Virginia Commonwealth (Vocational-Professional) and Old Dominion (Sea Grant).

That said, with an enrollment second only to VCU, there's no reason they shouldn't be playing in Division 1A.