UAB Football is back
- Thread starter tammefan
- Start date
My guess is it will take a couple of years to get it back up and going. Didn't it take Curry 2 years after starting the Georgia State program before they played their first game? If they start it right now, I guess I can see them recruiting and getting transfers now and next season. Then starting in 2016.
I would guess they are going to step down in class. Surely they are not such a disaster that they would close down a FBS program only to reemerge right back in FBS.
I am thinking drop to FCS. The hand writing is on the wall people. I think a lot of teams are going to retreat from FBS to FCS before all is said and done.
If you are not going to be gathered into one of Power-5 Conferences, you don't really have much business staying at the top. What are you selling??? "We collect a lot of revenue getting the snot beaten out of us." Alums love that...
I am thinking drop to FCS. The hand writing is on the wall people. I think a lot of teams are going to retreat from FBS to FCS before all is said and done.
If you are not going to be gathered into one of Power-5 Conferences, you don't really have much business staying at the top. What are you selling??? "We collect a lot of revenue getting the snot beaten out of us." Alums love that...
They basically just gave themselves the death penalty for no reason. Lost a year of play, all the good talent transferred, no coaches, no revenue, then try to rebuild. So dumb. That administration should be fired anyway. This seems like the least organized operation in sports history.
They will not drop down to FBS. One of the reasons they are bringing it back is so they can stay in C-USA. They were facing losing conference affiliation across the board without a football team.
The way I understand it is the whole fiasco was caused by a power play by the University of Alabama to put them in their place. It seems that they are in some way under the control of the University of Alabama and the UA cracked the whip on them to put them in line.
UAB is a branch of UA and I believe has the same board of Directors. It didn't make sense to shut them down in the first place only to come back and spend more money to start it back up six months later due to the conference issue. They had to have had conversation with the conference before they acted. Someone's head will surely roll for this.
This. I don't think UAB has a huge loyal fan base that is going to spend dollars on tickets, apparel and donations. I would guess that most of the well off football fans in the Birmingham area are fans of either Bama or Auburn.
Lack of funding is an issue to an extent, but UAB and others lied about them losing money. The program made a profit, albeit a small one.
IIRC Alabama shut them down. The question is how many of their kids went to Bama? Was this a move to plug some gaps and get a few quality kids from UAB? If you really consider Bamas illustrious history of bending the rules its not far fetched.
Athletics aren't purely about how much profit a program generates from TV contracts and ticket sales. It's about building brand equity and brand loyalty for the school. It's the reason every college in our country plays at least a few sports. An athletic department may operate in the red, but administrations don't mind it. Why? Because the free advertisement every time somebody sees that logo, and even more free advertisement in the event they field a decent team, plus the brand loyalty it helps build within the student body, have a great return on investment for an athletic department. Administrators are thinking long term (in most cases other than UAB) and realize it's worth taking a loss in the yearly budget in order to increase enrollment through the publicity sports provide and increase donations through the loyalty sports provide.
And before you claim sports don't impact donations or loyalty to smaller schools, ask any coach who's made an NCAA tournament run and he'll say the same thing I have. Even on the NAIA level, sports impact financial loyalty alumni show to their alma maters.
In UAB's case, the Alabama BOT made the conscious attempt to try to absorb UAB's brand into the overall UofA brand, and as a result have more control of the money funnel more money into their beloved Crimson Tide by slowly eliminating the UAB brand altogether. The push back they received nationally and locally, however, made them realize the hit to their long term earning potential (advertising, brand loyalty, future donations, future enrollment/applications, etc) took was more than they ever stood to gain by eliminating the program
I lived in Birmingham several years ago...per a few people who are still there and close to the university (UAB) the move to shut down the football program was a move out of spite directed by Paul Bryant Jr. (Bear's son) who sits on the University of Alabama board of trustees that oversees UAB, UAH and the other U of Alabama schools. UAB had the chance to hire Jimbo Fisher as coach some years back and Bryant blocked the hire. Here is an opinion piece from al.com. It seems that Jr wants to be sure that nobody in the state challenges his father's legacy...which seems rather childish but it is what it is.
FWIW, as far as revenue is concerned, I am talking about UAB getting paid to schedule games, though to be sure, they are more marketable in that regard while still in FBS, since they technically count as an FBS win, just like the rest of the Sunbelt or CUSA. Those conferences are basically hanging on to feed bowl eligibility for P5 conference programs like ours circa 2009, and give the heavies a rest and opportunity to play down their depth chart and prep for real fights.
This didn't have anything to do with the administration in Birmingham, and had everything to do with the powers that be that reside on the BoT in Tuscaloosa. They wanted UAB shutdown, because it was sort of a drain on the purse strings in Tuscaloosa. Since UAB is actually a satellite school of the University of Alabama.
Yeah I kind of addresses this in my second post that's super long. I guess what I meant here was that this is going to have effects similar to SMU's death penalty, and it was self inflicted (from somewhere within the University of Alabama system) rather than NCAA sanctioned.
They didn't give themselves anything. This entire ending of the football program fiasco can be traced back to one man, Paul Bryant Jr.. I don't know what happened, maybe he thought they were sucking support from "THE TIDE" by playing FBS football, maybe it was something else. But the entire Alabama system is under one ruling body which he is a member. He said it was all about saving money, lol, should have shut the tide down, that's where all the money goes anyway.
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