Study concludes shuttered football program at UAB made money

JustNeedMe81

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"We find that the three sports in question did not cost the university anywhere near the $3.75 million indicated on UAB's accounting statements," wrote Dan Rascher and Andy Schwarz, partners of Bay Area firm OSKR. "Instead, after making the sort of adjustments suggested by the economics literature, we conclude that the three sports were effectively break-even to slightly positive. Football and bowling showed a modest positive return for 2013-14, the last year for which complete data was available. Rifle showed a deficit, but the three-sport balance was positive to the tune of $75,000."
 

KrAzY3

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Did they factor in costs of Title IX compliance? If not their accounting would be way, way off.

I can tell that the whole thing is cooked though, just look at how they titled things: "The effect of college athletics on ____". They repeat this mantra over and over. So on so forth, they have staked their reputations to college football being a cash cow, so now they'll do what ever they can to maintain that assertion.

These guys are clowns, seriously. They cite the "Flutie" effect. Not making this up. They list guys like Steven Nash and Patrick Ewing as though they somehow pertain to that fanless abomination of a program at UAB. They don't as far as I can tell show any indication football raised attendance at UAB, but they just claim that it does elsewhere, so fact! They also, no lie cited the NCAA basketball tournament's impact on admissions. They do know UAB is keeping their basketball program right?

Oh finally, some UAB stuff. They I'm not kidding, cite future playoff and ticket revenue. They do understand no one is buying tickets right? They still estimated ticket sale growth to be around $150,000 for a team that doesn't exist, based on fiction I guess?

Then they talk about the media (what does that have to do with accounting?). If this thing actually had more substance to it, I might be able to keep reading it but I'm not even sure this is cooking the books, it's just propaganda. This is really their whole thing: "In our view, these key drivers of projected future losses were both misstatements of the true economic impact of an ongoing football program"

You see, these guys are from the Obannon case. Their whole argument hinges on the idea that universities are just ranking on money on college athletics, and everyone is getting rich. That's not true though, Title IX and the athletic department itself eats up the profits in a vast majority of the cases. In the case of a program like UAB that no one cares about, the football program doesn't even justify its own existence, much less the government mandated expenses associated with it.

Anyway, I just completed my study. There are only two in-state football programs that people care about, Alabama and Auburn. Done, now may be we can let this go away.
 
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CrimsonNagus

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Anyone with half a brain could look at an empty Legion Field every Saturday and know that there is no way that program is making money.

I swear, just once would I love for a UAB administrator to publicly say "where was all this support when we had the team, why weren't all of you cry babies buying tickets?"
 

KrAzY3

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I swear, just once would I love for a UAB administrator to publicly say "where was all this support when we had the team, why weren't all of you cry babies buying tickets?"
The thing is the support still isn't there. It almost entirely exists within the media and sympathetic fanbases for other schools.

It is scary for two groups though, the Boise States of the world, who through football welfare managed to enter the FBS (for the record UAB entered after the latest round of scholarship reductions), and the people who think they can milk NCAA football for a ton of money. It's just not set up that way though, these schools spend as much as they get, there is no hoarded pile of gold.
 

Mamacalled

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There is so much support for UAB Football that a whole 15 people turned out for it's rally yesterday.
No one really cares except for a handful. Other than emotional outcry their still isn't any real support for the program.
 

Mamacalled

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The thing is the support still isn't there. It almost entirely exists within the media and sympathetic fanbases for other schools.

It is scary for two groups though, the Boise States of the world, who through football welfare managed to enter the FBS (for the record UAB entered after the latest round of scholarship reductions), and the people who think they can milk NCAA football for a ton of money. It's just not set up that way though, these schools spend as much as they get, there is no hoarded pile of gold.
Boise State has fan support. Their stadium is as big as MSU's and they sell out every game. They have not received football welfare like you mention.
 

Crimson1967

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Nov 22, 2011
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The Andy Schwartz mentioned in the study is hardly a neutral party. I googled his name and found several articles by him in support of UAB football. So he is either a mouthpiece for the freeUAB group or some sort of paid hack.
 

rgw

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I'm skeptical of numbers when they start throwing around phrases like "economic impact"

You can get pretty loose with what something impacts
 

KrAzY3

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Boise State has fan support. Their stadium is as big as MSU's and they sell out every game. They have not received football welfare like you mention.
They were a junior college, and did not enter the FBS until the scholarship limit was lowered to 85. They are successful poster boys for football welfare, but there's no way that they ever make the jump to the FBS with a 105 scholarship limit, it just never would have happened. That is just one of the steps taken mind you, there were many other things to lower the standards so programs like that could get in, that included looking the other way on attendance (not a factor for Boise State, a factor for UAB), limiting coaches, limiting athlete benefits and so on. Furthermore, Boise State was able to get into bigger bowl games not because anyone wanted them there, but because of mandatory inclusion.
 

Padreruf

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It all depends on how you put a cost on scholarships. Does it really cost that much to add 85 students to the student body and have them attend classes? The universities say it does...these accountants say it does not.
 

bamacpa

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UAB can't house and feed a football team with 15K attendance - and I'm being generous there.
 

gtowntide

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I don't live in Alabama anymore so I know very little about the whole UAB situation. That said, it looks like the only people "upset" about all this is a few fans that probably supported their football program. They ignore or fail to realize that nobody came to UAB's games. The other group that complains are the barners that really don't care but somehow blame Paul Bryant JR. for all of UAB's woes.
It seems simple to me that your income has to be larger than your outgo in order to survive.
UAB didn't make this happen.
 

Crimson1967

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It all depends on how you put a cost on scholarships. Does it really cost that much to add 85 students to the student body and have them attend classes? The universities say it does...these accountants say it does not.
To just go to class for free, not really. But some classes have size limits, so a football player takes up space from a paying student. They also have to provide housing for the players, again taking up space in dorms from people who would be paying. Or they have to write a check for their off campus housing. Then they have to feed them and buy their textbooks.

That isn't taking into account the cost of maintaining a team. I would imagine a football uniform is the most expensive of all sports uniforms, at least from the sports UAB sponsors. Airfare is going to be pretty high for a football team. Even a bus trip probably requires at least two buses for all the players, coaches, etc. I would imagine the injury rate is higher, so insurance costs would be pretty high as well.
 

RollTideMang

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I don't get why so many people were in an uproar about them closing the football program. I am an alumni, and I think they made the right choice. No one ever went to the football games. There was no prestige. They rarely ever won any games.

I have alumni friends who I'm pretty sure never went to or considered going to a single game, but got crazy on facebook when this happened and started with their "#FreeUAB" tags or whatever. I don't get it.
 

dayhiker

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Anyone with half a brain could look at an empty Legion Field every Saturday and know that there is no way that program is making money.

I swear, just once would I love for a UAB administrator to publicly say "where was all this support when we had the team, why weren't all of you cry babies buying tickets?"
That's been my question all along too.
 

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