Study concludes shuttered football program at UAB made money

RTR91

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Local news in B'ham (Fox6) reporting that UAB President Ray Watts will announce tomorrow afternoon, via email and social media, that UAB will not reinstate the football program.
Link

Alabama Representative Jack Williams says three sources have told him UAB president Dr. Ray Watts will be issuing an e-mail at 7 p.m. Friday stating that football will not be returning.

Watts announced the University would be ending the programs in December 2014. That announcement was followed by months of protests, public outrage and national media coverage.

Williams says his sources believe Watts never intended to restore the program.
 

Crimson1967

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I guess Williams bill that would require UAB to have a football team didn't pass.

If you want some laughs, head to their board to read what they have to say. The next time a UAB fan says they are classier than us and not just all about football like us, have them read some of that.

I used to like the idea of them having a team and didn't care if they lost money. But lurking on their board has convinced me their fan base consists of a bunch of paranoid, bitter, holier than thous. Some of them make barners look rational. I not saying all UAB fans are like that, just that they are no different than anyone else.

I actually hope one of them does something stupid as long as no one gets hurt. So we can call all UAB fans that person's name like they call us Updykes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

bamahippie

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More info here:

'Strong indications' UAB will not reinstate football, State Rep. Jack Williams says

"Williams said two key meetings are scheduled for this morning to try to convince Watts to reinstate football. Williams said four local business leaders have a meeting scheduled with University of Alabama System trustee Johnny Johns, and local philanthropist Jimmy Filler has a meeting scheduled with Watts.

Williams said he understands that Filler plans to present Watts with a multimillion-dollar guaranteed letter of credit to contribute to upgrading UAB's football facilities if that sport is reinstated."
 

KrAzY3

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I honestly wish this story would die and give UAB a FCS team at the BJCC so we can make both sides happy.
If I understand correctly, some people UAB pretended they were going to do just that initially, then ended up making the jump to the FBS. They never had any business doing that, and that's the main issue here. They overreached, they overspent, and there was no necessity to do that, nor support to warrant that.

Alabama A&M spends just over 7 million a year on their athletic department. That includes a FCS football program. They spend less than half as much, in total, as UAB loses annually. There's no real excuse for that. If UAB wanted to run a FCS program responsibly, without delusions, I'd have no problem with that. But, their goal from the start didn't appear to be merely having a football program. They seemed to feel entitled to more than that.
 

bamahippie

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If UAB wanted to run a FCS program responsibly, without delusions, I'd have no problem with that. But, their goal from the start didn't appear to be merely having a football program. They seemed to feel entitled to more than that.
This right here.

I totally agree with the bolded. And I only take offense to the next part, if "they" includes me. :) I have nothing to do with administrative decisions that includes mismanagement of funds, not using funds allocated for facilities on other things, etc.

Oh well, sounds like it will all be over soon enough.
 

Ldlane

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I can't believe that "UAB Football" is still taking up space on the Bama board. :conf2:
 

Ole Man Dan

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If they wanna get back to being boring again, what's it to you?

And, Laughable. "against my will"... Give me a break. "entitled to public support"... You respond as if I or anyone else has asked you to support them. If they have, ignore them. Sounds easy enough to me. "Nope, I think I'll add my input to every UAB-related thread with some negative diatribe." Makes sense to me. Not ignore, but respond with venom. Anti-support. Soooo productive.
WHY?
 

rgw

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If I understand correctly, some people UAB pretended they were going to do just that initially, then ended up making the jump to the FBS. They never had any business doing that, and that's the main issue here. They overreached, they overspent, and there was no necessity to do that, nor support to warrant that.

Alabama A&M spends just over 7 million a year on their athletic department. That includes a FCS football program. They spend less than half as much, in total, as UAB loses annually. There's no real excuse for that. If UAB wanted to run a FCS program responsibly, without delusions, I'd have no problem with that. But, their goal from the start didn't appear to be merely having a football program. They seemed to feel entitled to more than that.
This is why I say it is partly about undergraduate admissions. Yeah sure, nobody goes to UAB because of a football tradition but it does sell well on the pamphlet that the school participates at the top level in the major sports in the country. If UAB football was about putting a product students, alumni, and the city are proud to support then they would have grown slowly and tried to win at a high level in the FCS/D-1AA level for the last two decades and change. It was never really about having a good product, it was about hanging with the Joneses on the checklist for undergraduate admissions.
 

bamahippie

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This is why I say it is partly about undergraduate admissions. Yeah sure, nobody goes to UAB because of a football tradition but it does sell well on the pamphlet that the school participates at the top level in the major sports in the country. If UAB football was about putting a product students, alumni, and the city are proud to support then they would have grown slowly and tried to win at a high level in the FCS/D-1AA level for the last two decades and change. It was never really about having a good product, it was about hanging with the Joneses on the checklist for undergraduate admissions.
Nah man, it's entitlement. Didn't ya hear?
 

rgw

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I think B-ham politics does have a problem of pie-in-the-sky ideas, but I don't think UAB football is a symptom of that tendency. There was a logic to fast-tracking them to D-1A/FBS but there was no real plan on making it into a competitive program like South Alabama under our own Joey Jones.


The fact they got axed right when they finally seemed to make a high quality HC hire is unfortunate. It really is. But decades of apathy and mismanagement from UAB administration is what made it happen. So for those in the administration fighting this: you get what you got and don't be upset.
 

Mamacalled

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If I was Watts I'd still want to know where was all this support when the team was actually on the field. No one wanted to throw money at this program until it was gone, why?
Ironic that Ray Watts cutting the program has been the best thing for UAB football. No one ever talked about them until now.
 

bamahippie

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There was a logic to fast-tracking them to D-1A/FBS but there was no real plan on making it into a competitive program like South Alabama under our own Joey Jones.

The fact they got axed right when they finally seemed to make a high quality HC hire is unfortunate. It really is. But decades of apathy and mismanagement from UAB administration is what made it happen. So for those in the administration fighting this: you get what you got and don't be upset.
I agree, and a someone who grew up around it, I just don't get why the UAB administration completely blew it.

And for those that seem to delight in making fun of crowd numbers, UAB fans were numerous at games when they've had decent teams. I've been to a few of those. People come watch winners. Is that a new concept? And guess what? The program tailed off when there was nothing done in the arms race. Tag that with poor coaching until Bill Clark came along. So people don't go watch teams that lose or do not meet expectations. I'm a Bama basketball fan too. Anyone want to jump on folks that chose not to go to Coleman the last couple of years, for the EXACT SAME REASON?
 

Tide1986

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This is why I say it is partly about undergraduate admissions. Yeah sure, nobody goes to UAB because of a football tradition but it does sell well on the pamphlet that the school participates at the top level in the major sports in the country. If UAB football was about putting a product students, alumni, and the city are proud to support then they would have grown slowly and tried to win at a high level in the FCS/D-1AA level for the last two decades and change. It was never really about having a good product, it was about hanging with the Joneses on the checklist for undergraduate admissions.
If having football was just a checklist item for undergraduate recruiting, I think someone at UAB was being rather delusional. Roughly 90% of UAB's undergraduate students come from the state of Alabama. If football is that important to someone in Alabama, he or she wouldn't go to UAB. UAB is a commuter school with more than 55% of its undergraduates coming from the Birmingam metro area.

Note: For comparison purposes, less than 50% of undergraduates at The University of Alabama come from the state of Alabama.
 
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rgw

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RTR91

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John Hammontree (@JohnHammontree): Bringing back football may make sense for UAB but not for the city of Birmingham

So here's the thing: I agree that the UA Board of Trustees is corrupt and biased against UAB athletics. I am sympathetic to the argument that the UAB Blazer football program was not in financial straits so dire that they necessitated the termination of the team, throwing the school's Conference USA affiliation into jeopardy. I even think Ray Watts should be fired.

But the question isn't whether or not the school should've lost the program; it's whether the Division I program should be reinstated.

And at this point, you lose me.
 

Mamacalled

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Look how many schools have a section about their NCAA athletics on their admission marketing pages


The zeitgeist in the undergraduate recruitment/admissions community believes that it is important to growing their application pool. There are some statistics that seem to validate that belief too. Whether in the specific case of UAB it made a difference or not, it is a thought process that many universities take when looking to expand their undergraduate enrollment.
It is amazing that Emory is ranked in the top ten Universities and gets students from all across the world and yet they don't have a football team.
I know what it is like to be a student and lose a football team. I went to Cal State Fullerton. It happens. They spent millions of dollars on a new on campus stadium with the belief it would save football. The program shut down a year later.
What is sad, it shows how everyone has this entitlement mindset. They want it no matter how feasible it is. Just give it to me and make others pay for it.
 

4Q Basket Case

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I still want to know how many UAB tickets were bought from the UAB Athletic Department, at face, by the end user.

I live and work in Birmingham, and would be shocked if it were greater than 5,000.

Sure, there are more in attendance. Often because the butts in the seats got there for free because their employer bought a block and gave them away. The City of Birmingham does it. Pretty much any large corporation in Birmingham does it. Lots of medium-to-small companies do too. Because they get a deal from the UAB AD.

So if there's so much support for UAB football, how often, and to what degree, have the supporters actually put their incredibly quiet money (as distinguished from pledges) where their incredibly loud mouths are?

I will say the irony of the whole thing is that in dispensing with an expensive program nobody much cared about, Ray Watts united the fan base like no one else has any other way.
 

bamahippie

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What is sad, it shows how everyone has this entitlement mindset. They want it no matter how feasible it is. Just give it to me and make others pay for it.
What the...? Where does this crap keep coming from?

By the way, when you guys are done with that broad brush, King Kong needs it back.
 

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