You see something happen, that's supposed to have happened, that fixed a problem that never should have happened, and then you see it undone and blame misplaced. No, it's not Alabama football or their fans, it's not some evil doers. It is just a complete lack of interest in UAB football that lead to their being shut down, and will lead to their bleeding millions and millions into the foreseeable future.
Here's their attendance numbers the year before they announced the closure (which created some artificial interest):
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2013.pdf
UAB 5 52,739 10,548
The NCAA mandated minimum, minimum mind you, is 15,000. They didn't even come close.
That's 52,739 paid attendance for the entire season! Now let's forget that there were shenanigans going on with their tickets, and just remember that even now you can get
season tickets for UAB football at $100. You remember all of Shrack's comments, you notice how he just skipped attendance and the stadium they say they need? There's no interest there, there's no money there, they lack NCAA mandated support for an FBS team, it never should have happened. How can anyone defend the importance of a program that their own fans didn't care about enough to show up?
You're forcing me to reply :smile: so I'll leave you with this last one.
Yes, attendance was terrible and there was low to no interest near the end of Callaways years and then the 2 years under Garrick McGee. That's what happens when you lose for 10 years straight to bad coaching hires and stifle your program. Smothering the program with a pillow for over a decade watching it slowly die before it's really born. Attendance is not what even necessarily what is important in this context since its an argument of money. The only thing that matters is the money that comes in from that attendance. i.e. why people who argue Troy or whoever else has "paid their dues" when in reality their ticket sales revenue is worse than UAB's even though we were garbage for 10 years and they're coming off of years of bowl games and 9-3 records. That season before the Clark hire we also gave up 50 points a game.
Here was the attendance the year of the shutdown (the 2-3 games prior to any shutdown knowledge were higher attendance than the last 3 games average after knowledge of possible shutdown. Averaged 24,000 or so the first 3 games):
2014:
UAB (6-6): 21,841
Troy (3-9): 16,767
South Alabama (6-7): 17,445
JSU (10-2): 15,573
Alabama St (7-5): 12,697
Alabama A&M (4-8): 8,485
The kind of insanity that went on with the UAB football program under our shared board of trustees is ridiculous. They would never allow any such craziness to go on at Alabama regardless of money
because they're fans of that school's football program. If you're going to try to argue otherwise then I know you're simply full of it. Even more importantly, this kind of thing really doesn't happen at other programs because those programs operate autonomously with their own board actively supporting their schools. They find ways to thrive and build support, instead of doing things like publicly threatening program closure and just in general not giving a crap because again,
they have a board that actually wants to see it succeed. If I had to pick a reason why I thought UAB shouldn't have a football program it is because of that. Any unbiased college football fan can see the reality of that situation.
2004 - Single member of the Board of trustees publicly threaten to close the program. see:
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/11/give_uab_football_what_it_need.html
2006 - Jimbo Fisher hire was nixed by the board of trustees in name of fiscal responsibility and we got freaking NEIL CALLAWAY for essentially the same amount of money. I don't care if Jimbo Fisher would've been there 1 or 2 years. 1 or 2 good years propels you to better years and potentially better hires and recruits: (See Western Kentucky.). Neil Callaway was a 5 year death sentence that basically killed the program. He was even given an extension for 3 and 4 win years, when even Watson Brown did better than that in a more difficult conference. see:
https://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/9891201 . And yes, Jimbo Fisher has been on record saying he was going to take the job.
2012 - 75 million on campus stadium wouldn't even be talked about on record, even though it was presented by our president who later resigned and Ray Watts was put into place. Already had 15 million lined up for it. You can argue til the cows come home "but that's only 15 million!", okay sure. Any other school would've been "alright, cool, we have a 15 million head start. Let's start fundraising for this over the next 5 to 10 years."
2014 - Board member Finis St. John shoots down UAB's plan to put down new turf on a practice field...fully paid for by UABs donors. see:
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/01/ua_trustee_finis_st_john_kille.html
No annual debt service for the duration of the program...which is super rare.
IIRC Garrick McGee, while he was the head coach, stated he wasn't allowed to do any fundraising for the program (though I may remember that incorrectly). In years past you couldn't even earmark your athletic donation for the football program at UAB. Again, Garrick McGee even knew the shutdown was coming which is why he left to Louisville.
https://www.underdogdynasty.com/uab...tball-shutdown-garrick-mcgee-twitter-dms-2013 . Kinda makes you think maybe Clark could've been hired under false pretenses, but that's water under the bridge.
So yes, attendance *was* terrible. But I can't imagine any kind of football program getting on its own two feet with that kind of "support" behind it from the top. It's one thing to not care for it, but it is another to technically be at the helm of it and actively hinder it as much as possible.
And you want to keep arguing that it's basically a business and should make money or pay for itself and how big of a waste of money it is. Well, who gets the blame for it struggling? The people who approve or disapprove the coaching, AD, and university president hires? Or do you blame the customers when a business owner puts out a bad product repeatedly? "They should go support their program even though they're going 2-10 and their board is hiring a head coach who's last notable thing he did was get a DUI instead of hiring Jimbo Fisher!" Great freaking plan. Alabama fans wouldn't put up with that garbage either. It's unrealistic.
Not that Alabama athletics isn't drowning in money, but do you honestly not think there aren't a few board members now and in the past that wouldn't transfer that 50 million in donations from UAB athletics to Alabama athletics in a heartbeat if they could? Ask yourself that question honestly. Of course there are, which in context of a university's board of trustees is pretty weird. It's a real conflict of interest in this system. It's not blaming the university of Alabama or it's fans, it simply is what it is.
I will say with the whole thing being killed and resurrected things have been much different. The football foundation and the overall transparency in the entire thing has changed quite dramatically so there is much more possibility for UAB football now...that includes there being much more possibility to bring money into the program. As I said: High season ticket sales for a G5 program, 50 million in donations, nice new practice facility, good head coach who knows what he is doing. Four things UAB has never had in football.
Finally, addressing your talk of a stadium which yes, I believe for UAB football to have any chance of actually becoming self sustainable has to happen. Back when the stadium was proposed was a great time due to the low pricing and there's really no reason major fundraising shouldn't have happened for it and had that put into motion
at the time. Things have changed now and it would cost likely twice as much to build almost the same stadium. I think Birmingham building something is the most reasonable possibility UAB has for a stadium at this point. If that goes through in the next 5 years and depending on the climate of football in general, I think UAB FBS football survives. If everything goes belly up in the next 10 years for the say, bottom 80-90 schools in FBS (I think this would include 10 to 15 "power schools" as well) and UAB is still playing in Legion, I see it dropping to FCS or dropping it entirely or the most likely scenario of being apart of whatever FBS college football has reformatted into. That's my thoughts on the stadium situation. We'll see what happens in a decade. UAB needs to get back into alignment with most of the schools in the AAC, something that would've happened had they invested in football.
What always kills me is people act like UAB having a football stadium is just some insane notion when nearly every college football team plays in their own stadium. It's not some crazy thing. Their presidents or boards just fundraised for it and had it built. There was no argument of "We gotta average 40,000 fans a game before we ever get a stadium!!!!" It literally never works like that.
High Schools play in their own stadium. A little over 50 schools in the country even break 40,000 average attendance at their football games. There are nearly 900 college football teams in the United States including every division and 129 FBS teams. So you even have 10-15 "power" schools not hitting that 40,000 attendance mark. And don't be surprised if South Alabama announces a stadium being built in the next 5 years. I'm sure there will be huge faux outrage over how it's a waste of taxpayer money (there won't be)
and to whoever is arguing that UAB is just some commuter school: 22% of UAB students live on campus now. 26% live on campus at Alabama. 20% of students live on campus at Auburn. see: usnews.com/best-colleges/
It's not the 70s or 80s anymore.
In some ways I agree with you. College sports are getting out of control money-wise and there is likely a peak and a crash coming soon. I wouldn't be opposed to finances being more considered across the board. I don't know what's going to happen with the football landscape, but I'm just going to support my school and see where the chips land.
So for real, no more replies because I'm tired of writing novel/TLDR posts and I doubt a majority of people here care or are going to change their minds on the topic anyways. That's all of my thoughts on the situation so good luck!
Edit: For what it's worth, if UAB could have possibly gotten into the A10 as basketball only I would've been cool with it. But that's simply not a possibility. Too far away and a ton of private, Catholic schools that likely wouldn't have allowed UAB in. MVC isn't a good option anymore either with Wichita St leaving to the AAC. There simply are no good reasonably-southern basketball focused conferences options anymore without a football team or really even at the FCS level.
