UAB fires AD and is planning to shut down UAB football program

[KrAzY3]

At a USA home game, you will see fans sporting UA, AU and LSU gear. No one says a word to them. No booing, no harassment.

You actually go to those things? Every time I get tickets I just throw them away...

 

[Tide1986]

here is a video from their protest today. As you can see their "fans" are out in full force

Probably just members of the marching band, which I assume will be another casualty of the end of UAB football.

 

[cuda.1973]

Scotty McCallum tells us what he thinks. And who he blames. (Do you need any hints what that will be?)

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/12/former_uab_president_founder_o.html#incart_hbx

 

[Tide1986]

Scotty McCallum tells us what he thinks. And who he blames. (Do you need any hints what that will be?)

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/12/former_uab_president_founder_o.html#incart_hbx

"People want to go to football games in the fall . . . I thought we needed a football program and we went ahead and did it," he said. "When you have 20-25,000 people they're not all students. You're pulling together a lot of people in this community along with the students."

Broad range right there. I assume actual paid attendance is closer to 20 than 25,000.

 

[uaintn]

I think for awhile Birmingham/Jefferson County was buying some season tickets to try to help them stay as FBS. Like they have the extra money. I hope the University will do right by the kids who went there to play football and earn their degrees. But the bottom line is the bottom line and there just weren't enough bottoms in the seats.

And I agree with Earle, if it was just losing a bit of money with good attendance, you keep going for the free publicity, school spirit, chance it'll turn around, etc. Not when it's hemorrhaging money.

 

[Matt0424]

Broad range right there. I assume actual paid attendance is closer to 20 than 25,000.

Paid attendance (off the top of my head) was under 21k last year (101st), and actual butt-in-seat attendance was under 11k. So yeah...

I think for awhile Birmingham/Jefferson County was buying some season tickets to try to help them stay as FBS. Like they have the extra money. I hope the University will do right by the kids who went there to play football and earn their degrees. But the bottom line is the bottom line and there just weren't enough bottoms in the seats.

And I agree with Earle, if it was just losing a bit of money with good attendance, you keep going for the free publicity, school spirit, chance it'll turn around, etc. Not when it's hemorrhaging money.

They still do, hence the above paid attendance of ~21k, and actual attendance of around ~11k. That's after they GIVE tickets away too...

 

[SouthBaman]

The BOT should cut them loose and let them fend for themselves - they could keep football if they pay for it. Pull out the medical school, hospital and associated graduate programs and keep these in the UA System. Rename the commuter college "University of Birmingham" and let them keep the other graduate programs. The medical school and hospital predate the 1969 founding of UAB, so the U of B would have no claim to them.

Good luck to the Birmingham delegation trying to get that separate university and its athletic teams funded in the legislature without the political clout of the University of Alabama System behind them.

 

[GP for Bama]

18 million dollar athletic department deficit?!? I had no idea. With the entire state of Alabama under a severe budget crisis....how can this allowed?

 

[TrampLineman]

One more, then I will quit, but At one time, the NCAA had strict standards to achieve and maintain Div I status . These requirements were in place partly to protect universities from the huge money losses we see at schools like UAB. what happened to these requirements? There is no way UAB qualified under those standards.

IIRC the NCAA changed the standards of attendance to "tickets sold" instead of "actual attendance" because not enough schools could keep eligibility under the old rules. I think it used to be you had to have 15,000-17,000 fans in attendance to keep D1 status. Not anymore.

Crap UAB doesn't have 1,700 in the stands. Funny they want the BOT to keep paying for football but they don't want to pay for tickets themselves to support the program...

 

[TheButcher1994]

All the people fussing now should have spent the last 20 years trying to cultivate the support of Bama fans instead of trying to alienate them. Ill will toward the University and the BOT is ingrained in the DNA of the UAB fans base, small as it is, which can be traced back to Gene Bartow. There is simply not enough support from UAB students or alumni, and it's not as if the population of the Birmingham area was clamoring for them to have a big time program.

The local press doesn't even care about UAB football unless it can be used to take a shot at UA. ScAUbinsnsky with the Birmingham News pipes up every few years and of course he is all over this mess. Al.com has been running fluff pieces along the lines of "An Aubie goes to a UAB Game to Dispel Myths" and "Paul Jr.'s Revenge Plotted for 20 Years" without any critical analysis or other viewpoints.

i do feel bad for the players and staff. They are in a bad position and I hope they are taken care of if all this occurs.

 

[Tide1986]

I don't understand why UAB sympathizers "see" some plot by Junior to kill their football program. If Junior "had it in" for UAB football, it would have never been birthed to begin with.

 

[Crimson1967]

I would imagine UAB's players are all under one year deals, just like every other school. If the program is dropped, the players would likely be free to transfer without sitting out a year. I also assume that any player who so desires would be allowed to finish his education for however many years of eligibility he has remaining. I think this would be the right thing to do. Since most would probably transfer anyway, it wouldn't be that many people.

Yes, they had a big crowd for Marshal, but a lot of the tickets were bought by a wealthy booster. (This was mentioned on their message board). The tickets were given out in local schools. How many "fans" will keep going if Mr. Moneybags isn't paying their way?

I lurk on their board a lot and they are a strange bunch. They deride us for only caring about football, yet many say they will never spend another dime in donations or ever attend another sporting event at UAB if they drop football. A few said they will burn all their UAB clothing and their diploma. Reading their board also makes me appreciate our no-profanity policy.

At one time I really didn't care about them and wouldn't have minded if they got their won stadium. Reading the nastiness on their board makes me glad they may beg going away. They make ITAT look sane.

On a related note, what will this do to Legion Field? This leaves the Magic City Classic and the Birmingham Bowl as their only clients.

 

[GP for Bama]

Simple solutions:

1) If the City of Birmingham is claiming they will support UAB football, then let the City by 50,000 tickets at $50 each for 6 home games. That equals $18 million and their Athletic Department breaks even.

2) Charge the 20,000 UAB undergrads $400 per semester "athletic activity fee" and they get their $18 million. Surely the UAB students support their team enough to do this!.

3) Ask UAB faculty if they would rather the $18 million would be better spent on faculty pay, academic scholarships, and better academic facilities.......Well...better not do this suggestion if you want to keep football.:eek2:

Seriously....there is no substantial support for UAB football....thus their problem.

 

[KrAzY3]

18 million dollar athletic department deficit?!? I had no idea. With the entire state of Alabama under a severe budget crisis....how can this allowed?

I've posted it three or four times over the years, but they were in threads about programs like UAB so no one read them I guess...

South Alabama is losing a lot of money to for the record. Alabama makes a ton of money and Auburn spends every penny they get, so despite healthy revenue they tend to dip into the coffers a bit as well. UAB was worst offender though, as they were basically throwing the tax dollars they got in the trash, no real return.

 

[Hoot30]

Paid attendance (off the top of my head) was under 21k last year (101st), and actual butt-in-seat attendance was under 11k. So yeah...



They still do, hence the above paid attendance of ~21k, and actual attendance of around ~11k. That's after they GIVE tickets away too...

^^^ This ^^^. There is an article on al.com which states that the City of B'ham receives more than 5,000 season tickets due to the contract to use Legion Field. An additional 95 tickets are comps to "dignitaries". Here's the tell-tale information. The article states that the city also buys an additional 5,000 season tickets to distribute to city employees and sometimes school children. It's obvious in doing the math on the make-up of their paid attendance, yet they "deserve" a FBS program.

 

[rgw]

The thing is that the vast majority of FBS programs operate at a deficit or right around break even. These things aren't going to be profit centers for Universities. They're seen as advertising/recruiting expenditures.

 

[James Eagle]

The rumored decision to shut down the UAB football program, in my opinion, is most unfortunate. I realize that monetarily it is a loser but so are 90% of the college football programs. I understand that the ranking of the medical school has slipped over the past few years so maybe it's time to replace the UAB President.

 

[bama70]

For me, the athletic programs at UA were a big part of my college experience. I would have been deeply hurt if UA had discontinued football/basketball during my on campus years. For this reason, I feel sorry for the students at UAB. Not everything that is offered by a university makes money or is designed to do so. I hope UAB football will somehow survive. I often question to myself many who post on this and other forums expressing their joy that UAB is dropping their program. If you think UAB is a threat to UA football you are seriously living in a fantasy world.

 

[BigEasyTider]

I realize that monetarily it is a loser but so are 90% of the college football programs.

Wouldn't be able to speak on UAB or way or another, but that last statement is demonstrably false. Most FBS football programs make incredible amounts of money. It's a huge cash cow, and I can't think off-hand of a single FBS football program that actually loses money. If the UAB football program loses money, then they are very much the exception to the rule.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

For me, the athletic programs at UA were a big part of my college experience. I would have been deeply hurt if UA had discontinued football/basketball during my on campus years. For this reason, I feel sorry for the students at UAB. Not everything that is offered by a university makes money or is designed to do so. I hope UAB football will somehow survive. I often question to myself many who post on this and other forums expressing their joy that UAB is dropping their program. If you think UAB is a threat to UA football you are seriously living in a fantasy world.

I don't think anyone here has ever seen that program as a threat. I stated way above that I wouldn't favor closing it, if it were at break even or even a modest deficit, but are you aware of the size of the annual deficit? What size annual deficit would you consider acceptable?