re: It's Official: UAB Discontinues Football

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Doubt it. With the autonomity for the P5 there will be a P5 division, a G5 division then FCS within 10 years.

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That's possible, and if it happens then some of those other programs might survive but the plain fact is that a lot won't make it. Here's a USA Today report on the financial situation of college athletic departments. It is pretty neat in that you can sort it by columns.

In the report, UAB has a budget of $28 million with $18 mil of that (64%) being subsidized. 124 programs had subsidy percentages higher than UAB's and a whole lot of them are D-1 programs.

Tuition is going up at a tremendous rate all across the country and at some point in the very near future, schools are going to start looking at where the money's going. Places that are funding 70-80% of the athletic budget to a tune of $20 Mil+ a year with the vast majority of that going to football are going to start saying enough.

It isn't like this hasn't happened before. In 1977, there were 146 Division 1A football programs. In 1986, there were 105. In a mere decade, 41 schools either dropped football entirely or dropped down a division or more in their level of participation.

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If as few as 1% of those MDs gave a shait, UAB would still have a football program.

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This.

I was surprised to read in Scarbinsky's article, I think, said that UAB's athletic budget includes all of a whopping $2,000,000 in donations every year. In a city with all the resources...and a university with no doubt a large amount of wealthy alums...that's it? $2M?

The reality in all of this is that Aubs give a lot more fricks about UAB football than UAB students & alums & Birmingham corporate types. I'm not happy that it's gone, and I feel sorry for them, but the bottom line is that few students care enough to show up to games, and few community people with resources cared enough to donate over the years.

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124 programs had subsidy percentages higher than UAB's and a whole lot of them are D-1 programs.

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I guess it depends on how you define "a whole lot".

I found these D-I football schools. Did I miss any?

Georgia State, Buffalo, Ball State, Akron, W.Michigan, MTSU, N. Mexico State, Ohio, N. Illinois, C. Michigan, FAU, Miami Ohio, San Jose State.

With around 128 D-I football schools, that puts UAB in roughly the bottom 10% of schools in terms of non-subsidy revenue.

UAB has enormous potential athletically and academically if it could break away from the UA system and simply become "The University of Birmingham." There is no reason they could not be as good as Memphis or Cincinnati in basketball. I would support that as a UA grad and Birmingham resident, but I doubt it will ever happen.

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UAB wants to blame Alabama (and Paul Bryant, Jr. specifically) for its programs problems, but the real culprit is UAB.

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So UAB canceled the talks with Jimbo Fisher a few years ago?

UAB refused to play Alabama in football?

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The truth is that Blazer students just wouldn't show up even though Legion Field is within sight of campus..

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Have you ever been to that crumbling dump?

Does this count as another NC for bama?