UAB reinstates football for 2016

81usaf92 · Jun 4, 2015

RobK said:
In these regards, UAB and Legion Field fail miserably. And artificially propping up the finances with taxpayer subsidies and private donations to cover operating costs won't solve either problem.

It would either have to take UA getting involved (which they wont), Hoover or Homewood getting involved (possible but they both would be extremely cautious at the fact Bham would most likely try to steal the money), or a Richard schrusy-Troy University kinda thing in which everyone knows it seems a little too good to be true. UAB and Legion Field are stuck at the hip together, and they wont get a new stadium unless something radically changes. My idea is work with Hoover into using the Met since the Barons dont play there anymore because it can fit 16k for football games. It is also in a way nicer area than Legion Field.

RTR91 · Jun 4, 2015

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/06/uab_athletic_director_urges_bi.html

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

cuda.1973 · Jun 4, 2015

I finally figured out how this scam will work.

It came to me, when I was up (in the middle of the night) watching a South Park re-run, called "Cartmanland".

Cartman inherits $1M, and buys an amusement park. He proclaims it the greatest amusement park in CO, since no one can come in! (Especially Stan and Kyle.)

He has to slowly add employees, to make it function. Every time he adds an employee, he has to reluctantly allow some folks to buy a one-day ticket.

Eventually, he has to allow so many folks to come in that it turns into an extremely popular (and therefore profitable) venture. Cartman is declared a financially genius. Even though he hates what it has become and trades it back, to the former owner, to get his money back.

If only it were this easy for UAB football. Somehow, some folks in B'ham are probably working on this fantasy.

CB4 · Jun 4, 2015

So the city is already thinking about backing out on the doubling of the financial support from $250K to $500K for the next five years? How typical.

These guys probably get one of the deacons to pull their money out of the offering plate after church service is over...

bamahippie · Jun 5, 2015

Why does UAB not sell bonds to willing contributors, instead of it possibly coming out of taxpayer pockets? I guess I don't completely understand how that would work here, though it has worked successfully in building needed facilities elsewhere...

TRU · Jun 5, 2015

bamahippie said:
Why does UAB not sell bonds to willing contributors, instead of it possibly coming out of taxpayer pockets? I guess I don't completely understand how that would work here, though it has worked successfully in building needed facilities elsewhere...

UAB has built a lot of facilities using bonds. That is one of the structural things that will prevent UAB from rebuilding its medical research program anytime soon. During the period when the NIH budget was doubling, the admin at UAB extrapolated the curve and concluded that the exponential growth would last forever. They built a lot of research buildings on campus on this assumption, selling bonds to do so. When the NIH budget went flat, they had massively over-built. They now have a lot of very expensive research lab space that is sitting empty. And the bondholders do not care whether the labs are empty or full - they still want to have their coupons paid each month. This has put UAB under severe financial stress, which has made them unable to maintain and upgrade their core facilities and to make decent counteroffers when faculty get job offers from elsewhere. And when their successful faculty get poached by other institutions, they leave, take their grants with them, and leave another empty lab sporting a big bond payment. It is a death spiral.

I sincerely doubt that the UAB administration, which is still trying to dig itself out from under this mess, will be inclined to go for another bond offering unless they are sure that the program for which the bonds are being floated will raise enough revenue to pay the bonds. And given the history of the football program, I do not think that they will conclude that football could do this.

lowend · Jun 5, 2015

And it was under the leadership of current president Watts, when he was dean of the medical school, that many of the faculty and grants left.

bamahippie · Jun 5, 2015

TRU said:
UAB has built a lot of facilities using bonds. That is one of the structural things that will prevent UAB from rebuilding its medical research program anytime soon. During the period when the NIH budget was doubling, the admin at UAB extrapolated the curve and concluded that the exponential growth would last forever. They built a lot of research buildings on campus on this assumption, selling bonds to do so. When the NIH budget went flat, they had massively over-built. They now have a lot of very expensive research lab space that is sitting empty. And the bondholders do not care whether the labs are empty or full - they still want to have their coupons paid each month. This has put UAB under severe financial stress, which has made them unable to maintain and upgrade their core facilities and to make decent counteroffers when faculty get job offers from elsewhere. And when their successful faculty get poached by other institutions, they leave, take their grants with them, and leave another empty lab sporting a big bond payment. It is a death spiral.

I sincerely doubt that the UAB administration, which is still trying to dig itself out from under this mess, will be inclined to go for another bond offering unless they are sure that the program for which the bonds are being floated will raise enough revenue to pay the bonds. And given the history of the football program, I do not think that they will conclude that football could do this.

LOL, this is what I'm talking about when I include a lot of the blame on administrators. Thanks for the info.

Rama Jama · Jun 5, 2015

There are 3 factors the spell doom for UAB football:

1) The product on the field will never be consistently good. There is just not enough support to pay a coach or staff 3 or 4 million a year so they will be stuck with a mediocre coaching staff forever. They will never be able to recruit top level players since they will be competing with the big dogs Alabama and Auburn.
2) Legion field- No one wants to go to a dilapidated 60 year old stadium plus the area that is sits in a semi war zone. There will never be enough paying fans to make the financial part feasible to build a new facility.
3) Fan apathy- There is a reason why there is not a professional team in Birmingham. The city is littered with failed attempts at professional teams.(football, hockey, soccer, and even the barons were gone for a while). Birmingham has not supported a team in 40 years since the B'ham Americans in the old World football League. That being said UAB has its own set of issues that make it even more unlikely. According to the Al.com, UAB raised 17 million to resurrect UAB football, but 60% came from municipalities in and around B'ham. The rest was pledges that may or may not ever materialize. How many people are going to donate to a team that on a good year finishes at 500.

My opposition is for them to field, as I said many times, a team at the FBS level. It is ludicrous to think that UAB will ever win consistently at that level. If they won a couple of conference a the FCS level, you'd have more support. I think people would rather see a 9-3 and or 10-2 team as opposed to a 5-7 or a 6-6 team. On top of that at the FBS level, UAB will be forced to play away games simply for the big check to support ongoing expenses which will mean they will never have a very good record and probably very few home games. Football at UAB was a bad idea from the beginning.

bamahippie · Jun 5, 2015

Rama Jama said:
There are 3 factors the spell doom for UAB football:

1) The product on the field will never be consistently good. There is just not enough support to pay a coach or staff 3 or 4 million a year so they will be stuck with a mediocre coaching staff forever. They will never be able to recruit top level players since they will be competing with the big dogs Alabama and Auburn.
2) Legion field- No one wants to go to a dilapidated 60 year old stadium plus the area that is sits in a semi war zone. There will never be enough paying fans to make the financial part feasible to build a new facility.
3) Fan apathy- There is a reason why there is not a professional team in Birmingham. The city is littered with failed attempts at professional teams.(football, hockey, soccer, and even the barons were gone for a while). Birmingham has not supported a team in 40 years since the B'ham Americans in the old World football League. That being said UAB has its own set of issues that make it even more unlikely. According to the Al.com, UAB raised 17 million to resurrect UAB football, but 60% came from municipalities in and around B'ham. The rest was pledges that may or may not ever materialize. How many people are going to donate to a team that on a good year finishes at 500.

My opposition is for them to field, as I said many times, a team at the FBS level. It is ludicrous to think that UAB will ever win consistently at that level. If they won a couple of conference a the FCS level, you'd have more support. I think people would rather see a 9-3 and or 10-2 team as opposed to a 5-7 or a 6-6 team. On top of that at the FBS level, UAB will be forced to play away games simply for the big check to support ongoing expenses which will mean they will never have a very good record and probably very few home games. Football at UAB was a bad idea from the beginning.

You may be correct in that they're doomed from the get-go, but...

1) Um, they were/are in the CUSA, and never were in competition with Bama or Auburn for a football player...ever. Ever.
2) Having been to a few, agreed on Legion. It's up to B'ham politicians and business leaders at this point.
3) Fan apathy, yeah, OK. But Birmingham has always been behind winners, and show up to watch them. The Stallions didn't leave because of fan apathy. Some of those leagues folded. Give the 'ham some credit haha.

Reading between the lines at what some of the more influential leaders on both sides have been saying this week, it appears that there hasn't been a good open line of communication between UAB admins and the Birmingham business elite. And that is just stupid. That explains a little about the "sudden" interest.

Redwood Forrest · Jun 7, 2015

Rama Jama said:
Football at UAB was a bad idea from the beginning.

I agree with you on all three. But this line should read FBS football was a bad idea from the beginning.

In Div III UAB was 11-6-2.
In Div IAA UAB was 21-12.
In Div IA UAB was/is 67-95

Clearly IA is a bad idea for UAB,

DzynKingRTR · Jun 7, 2015

UAB's biggest issue is Legion Field. That place was examined by architects and engineers 15 years ago and the recommendation was to tear it down. Now it is in even worse shape and the area around it is a dangerous dump.

as far as the pro teams that have "failed". the main reason they didn't do well is because they weren't really pro teams. The Stallions, The Fire, etc. were not the NFL, they were pretenders. The Canadian football team in America (especially in the South) were just bad ideas from the start.

Perhaps they should depart from the University of Alabama system and become Birmingham U or Birmingham State U. Since "everybody" want this football team back, they should go support themselves. They do this so they can quit blaming the real Alabama for their failures.

bamadp · Jun 7, 2015

Redwood Forrest said:
I agree with you on all three. But this line should read FBS football was a bad idea from the beginning.

In Div III UAB was 11-6-2.
In Div IAA UAB was 21-12.
In Div IA UAB was/is 67-95

Clearly IA is a bad idea for UAB,

Exactly!!!
UAB along with about fifty other schools should be IAA, but the big bucks are in IA. The NZAA is to blame for the current state of college football. Between it's stupid rules, selective enforcement, and the plethora of bowl games, college football is no where hear what it used to be.

The minimum attendance requirements are laughable. 15K ?? It should be at least 30K, and they should count the people that actually come through the turnstiles and watch the game. Now it's tickets sold by the athletic department. Once the school sells a ticket, it doesn't matter whether it's used or not. And to top it off, any ticket sold by the school for at least 1/3 of its face value counts toward meeting their attendance requirements. In 2014 the city of Birmingham bought 5,000 season tickets for $225K. That's 5,000 seats for six home games...that works out to $7.50 per ticket. Between students, fans, the city, various businesses, and concession contracts, UAB should be able to meet NCAA requirements.

It would behoove both UAB and the NCAA for them to be IA. There are what, 42 bowl games now? That's 84 schools that need at least six wins

. A team could get an easy win over a IA UAB and a IAA school. UAB could travel to, for example, Nebraska as a IA school, collect their million bucks and go back to Birmingham. You hear all the time about schools scheduling IAA teams, but if IA schools only played other IA schools, it would be impossible to have enough bowl eligible teams. Thanks NZAA. Bowl games should be a reward for a job well done...not mediocrity. There should be no more than probably 15 bowl games, but money talks I guess.

30K people actually attending the game and at least eight wins to qualify for a bowl...but we know that will never happen.

Redwood Forrest · Jun 7, 2015

bamadp said:
Exactly!!!
UAB along with about fifty other schools should be IAA, but the big bucks are in IA. The NZAA is to blame for the current state of college football. Between it's stupid rules, selective enforcement, and the plethora of bowl games, college football is no where hear what it used to be.

The minimum attendance requirements are laughable. 15K ?? It should be at least 30K, and they should count the people that actually come through the turnstiles and watch the game. Now it's tickets sold by the athletic department. Once the school sells a ticket, it doesn't matter whether it's used or not. And to top it off, any ticket sold by the school for at least 1/3 of its face value counts toward meeting their attendance requirements. In 2014 the city of Birmingham bought 5,000 season tickets for $225K. That's 5,000 seats for six home games...that works out to $7.50 per ticket. Between students, fans, the city, various businesses, and concession contracts, UAB should be able to meet NCAA requirements.

It would behoove both UAB and the NCAA for them to be IA. There are what, 42 bowl games now? That's 84 schools that need at least six wins . A team could get an easy win over a IA UAB and a IAA school. UAB could travel to, for example, Nebraska as a IA school, collect their million bucks and go back to Birmingham. You hear all the time about schools scheduling IAA teams, but if IA schools only played other IA schools, it would be impossible to have enough bowl eligible teams. Thanks NZAA. Bowl games should be a reward for a job well done...not mediocrity. There should be no more than probably 15 bowl games, but money talks I guess.

30K people actually attending the game and at least eight wins to qualify for a bowl...but we know that will never happen.

Probation, according to NCAA Bylaw 20.9.9.5.2, is essentially a 10-year warning period in which any further attendance infractions result in "restricted membership." Restricted FBS programs are then given one more year to hit the 15,000 average attendance target before being forced to start over the three-year transition process.

Now that, right there, is a joke no matter who you root for. It would take at least 13 years to get kicked out, unless they just start the cycle all over again ..... which is what I suspect they do.

UAB "reported" 21,841 for 2014.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...ndance-home-crowds-drop-to-lowest-in-14-years

There were 9 schools who reported less than 15,000. It is a self-reporting process, so it appears the nine are not as smart as UAB.

Rama Jama · Jun 8, 2015

bamadp said:
Exactly!!!
UAB along with about fifty other schools should be IAA, but the big bucks are in IA. The NZAA is to blame for the current state of college football. Between it's stupid rules, selective enforcement, and the plethora of bowl games, college football is no where hear what it used to be.

The minimum attendance requirements are laughable. 15K ?? It should be at least 30K, and they should count the people that actually come through the turnstiles and watch the game. Now it's tickets sold by the athletic department. Once the school sells a ticket, it doesn't matter whether it's used or not. And to top it off, any ticket sold by the school for at least 1/3 of its face value counts toward meeting their attendance requirements. In 2014 the city of Birmingham bought 5,000 season tickets for $225K. That's 5,000 seats for six home games...that works out to $7.50 per ticket. Between students, fans, the city, various businesses, and concession contracts, UAB should be able to meet NCAA requirements.

It would behoove both UAB and the NCAA for them to be IA. There are what, 42 bowl games now? That's 84 schools that need at least six wins . A team could get an easy win over a IA UAB and a IAA school. UAB could travel to, for example, Nebraska as a IA school, collect their million bucks and go back to Birmingham. You hear all the time about schools scheduling IAA teams, but if IA schools only played other IA schools, it would be impossible to have enough bowl eligible teams. Thanks NZAA. Bowl games should be a reward for a job well done...not mediocrity. There should be no more than probably 15 bowl games, but money talks I guess.

30K people actually attending the game and at least eight wins to qualify for a bowl...but we know that will never happen.

Yes, there are big bucks in FBS, but there are also substantially higher costs as well. For instance, UAB travels to Nebraska to play the Huskers for 750,000 which would be pretty close to the right figure, their expenses will eat a way a good chunk before they net a dime. Cost for a charter flight, food, equipment transport, hotel for 150 would be substantial. Say UAB chose to go FCS and played Jax State, Troy, USA, and possibly UNA. The cost to go to those games would be about the same as traveling to one game in Nebraska. You'd have better attendance because these are in state schools whose fans will PAY for a ticket rather than get one for free. If you had 25000 fans go to the game with a cost 20 a ticket, you'd have played 4 games and made more net money than one trip to the midwest. UAB would also have a chance to win some of these games where they have zero chance of beating Nebraska. Would you rather go see a 9-3 team in FCS or a 5-7 team in FBS. It seems pretty simple to me.

TheAccountant · Jun 8, 2015

Rama Jama said:
3) Fan apathy- There is a reason why there is not a professional team in Birmingham. The city is littered with failed attempts at professional teams.(football, hockey, soccer, and even the barons were gone for a while). Birmingham has not supported a team in 40 years since the B'ham Americans in the old World football League. Th

Just had to respond to this.

-The Barons moving downtown has been an astronomical success and has enjoyed great city and regional support. There's no debate on that and shows ignorance on your part. They drew close to a 100,000 more fans their first season outside of Hoover (397k total). Last year, 40,000 more fans on top of 2013's increase (437k total) and are averaging even more fans per game this season.

-Birmingham has supported most any professional team that the city has had. The issues for most of the teams you mentioned above is not a problem with local apathy but structural issues with the league/team ownership. The Stallions ranked in the top 4 of attendance the last two years of existence.

bamahippie · Jun 8, 2015

TheAccountant said:
Just had to respond to this.

-The Barons moving downtown has been an astronomical success and has enjoyed great city and regional support. There's no debate on that and shows ignorance on your part. They drew close to a 100,000 more fans their first season outside of Hoover (397k total). Last year, 40,000 more fans on top of 2013's increase (437k total) and are averaging even more fans per game this season.

-Birmingham has supported most any professional team that the city has had. The issues for most of the teams you mentioned above is not a problem with local apathy but structural issues with the league/team ownership. The Stallions ranked in the top 4 of attendance the last two years of existence.

Thiiiiiiiiisssss...

Rama Jama · Jun 8, 2015

TheAccountant said:
Just had to respond to this.

-The Barons moving downtown has been an astronomical success and has enjoyed great city and regional support. There's no debate on that and shows ignorance on your part. They drew close to a 100,000 more fans their first season outside of Hoover (397k total). Last year, 40,000 more fans on top of 2013's increase (437k total) and are averaging even more fans per game this season.

-Birmingham has supported most any professional team that the city has had. The issues for most of the teams you mentioned above is not a problem with local apathy but structural issues with the league/team ownership. The Stallions ranked in the top 4 of attendance the last two years of existence.

Ignorance, huh. I've been around Birmingham all my life. I've seen it go from one of the most prominent cities in the southeast to an afterthought when it comes to getting anything that will move it forward. The Baron's have been a success downtown no doubt. We talking major league teams. Yes, all of the leagues have failed, but there was time when B'ham was considered a prime location for a NFL team. Now Nashville has one, Jacksonville has one. B'ham nada. Both cities were at least at one time the same size or smaller markets than B'ham. Why do you think that is? It is because the city of Birmingham will not support it. Where is the money going to come from to build a 40,000 seat stadium? The money is just not there unless the taxpayers foot the bill or the UA system. UAB wants to be something it is not and never will be. The dynamics are just not there. An FCS team would have a chance to be successful. Ignorance, is someone who thinks UAB will be a big time winner in FCS division football. Apparently you fall into that category.

TheAccountant · Jun 8, 2015

Rama Jama said:
Why do you think that is? I

Why have those other cities outgrown Birmingham and gotten a pro team?
Because Birmingham and the region has had short-sighted, corrupt, and petty politicians due in part to it's sordid Civil Rights past. The issue is not local fan support but a general ineptness of our leaders in the past 30+ years.

Hopefully, the success of the Barons, Indy Race at Barber, NCAA soccer championships, and Davis Cup in the last few years will show that the region can and does support sporting events outside of Alabama and Auburn. But the 'pro' team shipped has sailed years ago. There's too many other viable cities with much larger metros and corporate interests for Birmingham ever to get an NFL franchise.

Rama Jama said:
Ignorance, is someone who thinks UAB will be a big time winner in FCS division football. Apparently you fall into that category.

Now you're being dense in creating a straw man. Where did I ever write UAB would be some big time winner in D1 football? I simply responded to one aspect of your post showing where you were wrong in what Birmingham has/hasn't supported. I said nothing of UABs chances of major success on the field.

For the record, I do not believe UAB will ever be a major contender in football but they certainly could be competitive in their league. If they played outside of the dump that is Legion Field and offered competitive ticket packages and family friendly promotions I could easily see them filling up a 35-40k seat stadium most games, not every game but most games. There's simply too many people getting priced out of a game experience in Tuscaloosa or Auburn that would like to enjoy a game with their kids without taking out an equity loan.

rolltide7854 · Jun 8, 2015

The only thing I have left to say about it is Bless their hearts.

UAB reinstates football for 2016

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