Cancelling UAB Football - the brave decision that didn’t happen
If a football program should have been eliminated, it was UAB’s. This once, briefly, happened. As subsequent empty stadiums confirm, trustees should have stuck to their first instincts.
Author’s note: IMO, today’s long-form piece of journalism is justified for several reasons:
No other Alabama journalist has covered this “elephant-in-the-room” topic.
IMO, lessons from this sports-world case study apply to many other subjects.
The article develops a recurring theme of my writing - the truth is often the opposite of the “authorized narrative.”
This piece also develops my thesis that the press almost never admits when they’re wrong and rarely performs “follow-up journalism” - especially when such pieces might reveal how the claims of corporate journalists are routinely spurious and ignore obvious reality.
***
In December 2014, an announcement of the Board of Trustees at the University of Alabama stunned the sports world and citizens of Alabama. The trustees voted to eliminate the Division I football program at UAB.
Significantly, this was the first time since Pacific University made the same decision in 1995 that a university eliminated its most visible sports program.
As documented below, this decision created an instant and powerful backlash in Birmingham. After vehement protests, the decision was rescinded six months later and the program was re-started in 2017 and continues to this day.
The decision to eliminate a major, money-losing program and then rescind this decision in the face of a strong community backlash provides a compelling case study that reveals the challenges leaders face when making a correct, albeit unpopular, decision.
(In working on this piece, I thought about the likely response if public officials abolished - or tried to abolish - say, the TSA or the Department of Education. My bottom-line: This is Not going to happen regardless of the excellent reasons this should happen or the fact these agencies should never have been created in the first place.)
Subsequent events seem to prove that UAB football lacked, and still lacks, the requisite fan interest to support a competitive football program. Furthermore, with the expenses associated with fielding a viable football program dramatically increasing, it was all but guaranteed the decision to re-start the program would produce record levels of red ink.
In short, the UAB football case study seems to suggest that it is almost impossible for “leaders” to make a wise fiduciary decision. In this case study, the “adults in the room” were recast as villains and not only re-started the program, they allocated tens of millions of dollars to subsidize a program with virtually no significant fan interest.
For myself, the case study of UAB football reveals several disturbing truths regarding the manner false narratives (indeed, possible fraud) are created and how inconvenient facts are concealed via multi-faceted conspiracies designed to conceal reality.
Regarding UAB football, University of Alabama board of trustees had correctly identified sound and undeniable reasons football should be disbanded. When subsequent events and data, including paltry attendance figures, confirmed the leaders’ earlier concerns, this data was ignored or concealed.
Notably, the obvious lack of support of UAB football has also been covered up by a “watchdog” press corp that almost never mentions the “elephant in the room,” namely few fans were paying to attend UAB football games.
Announced attendance vs. actual attendance …
While many smaller Division I football programs inflate game attendance figures, manipulation of attendance figures by UAB officials has been among the most brazen in sports.
I embarked on this contrarian research project after I recently watched the UAB-Army football game, which was televised by ESPNU.
The stated attendance figure for this game was 22,489. However, from watching the game and closely examining photos that showed large swaths of UAB’s new 47,000-seat stadium, I quickly concluded that the actual attendance figure was likely only 8,000 fans (and, per social media posts, “many” fans at the game were pulling for Army).
In other words, approximately 39,000 seats were unoccupied and stadium capacity (for a game against a “name” conference rival) was only 17 percent. UAB officials, per my estimate, had inflated the attendance figures by approximately 14,500 fans, or more than 150 percent.
Furthermore, the embarrassing actual attendance was clearly not an anomaly. The prior UAB home game against Akron had a stated attendance of 17,800, when actual attendance was probably even lower than 8,000 fans.
UAB’s home opener in the 2025 season was against Alabama State, a Division I-AA Historically Black College from Montgomery with a campus enrollment of approximately 4,000 students.
According to the writer of this article, which was not written by a local journalist, the (highly-dubious) announced crowed of 26,200 consisted of 60 percent Alabama State fans.
That is, more fans from a I-AA program located 100 miles from Birmingham attended UAB’s season opener than local UAB fans. For comparison purposes, UAB has an on-campus enrollment of 20,900 students, almost 14,000 employees and is located in a metro area of 1.1 million people.
While 99 percent of “supporters” of UAB football are probably embarrassed to talk about “utterly atrocious” fan attendance, if they did broach this taboo topic, they would no doubt blame the embarrassing attendance figures on the fact UAB was fielding poor teams and the school employed the wrong head coach (Trent Dilfer, who was fired Sunday).
(Note: No story I could find on the firing of Dilfer mentioned embarrassing fan attendance - the elephant in the room - as one reason for this coaching change.)
While Coach Dilfer’s teams produced only a 9-21 record in 2 1/2 seasons, the truth is paltry UAB attendance figures have, with a few very rare exceptions, been the norm at UAB football games in the 36 years since UAB first fielded a football program.
For example, UAB did experience unprecedented football success under former coach Bill Clark, who was hired in late 2013 and coached the Blazers for six seasons (remaining as coach even when the program was suspended for two seasons in 2015 and 2016).
Still, even when UAB was fielding winning teams and qualifying for bowl games during Clark’s tenure, UAB football games, with only a couple exceptions, rarely attracted more than 15,000 fans who actually attended a game.
For example, in 2018, after UAB had returned to playing, Coach Clark’s Blazers fielded another winning squad. Late in the season, UAB clenched a division title with a home victory over conference rival Southern Miss.
Based on one social media poster, real attendance at this game might have been 5,000 to 10,000 fans. (I observed video highlights of this game, but this video clip is no longer accessible on my computer. Still, I can confirm that, per my estimate, 85 to 90 percent of the seats at Legion Field seemed to be empty and the “announced” attendance of 26,000 fans was clearly inflated three to four-fold.)
As noted, many struggling football programs inflate fan attendance. One could argue whether this common practice qualifies as a form of organized fraud or intentional deception. IMO, if such habits routinely occur and are particularly brazen, and if this data is used to promote a false narrative that mischaracterizes “support” for a program - which then justifies greater tax-payer contributions (like construction of a $200 million football stadium) - such prevarications can, arguably, produce negative consequences.
The rationale for a decision that created a firestorm backlash …
In December 2014, UAB President Ray Watts cited lack of consistent fan support and the expected rising expenses necessary to field a competitive program as the reasons for pulling the plug on the program.
“The fiscal realities we face -- both from an operating and a capital investment standpoint -- are starker than ever and demand that we take decisive action for the greater good of the athletic department and UAB,” Watts said as reported by ESPN. “As we look at the evolving landscape of NCAA football, we see expenses only continuing to increase. When considering a model that best protects the financial future and prominence of the athletic department, football is simply not sustainable.”
As reported by the website Inside Higher Education, the University of Alabama at Birmingham eliminated its struggling Division I football program to save $50 million by the end of the decade (five years).
“Instead of subsidizing poorly attended games played by a team that has struggled to win, university officials would prefer to invest in educating UAB’s 19,000 students and tending to its hospital system, which is is one of the largest in the country and sees a million patients a year …”
“The unpopular decision followed an 18-month review of the university’s finances by Ray Watts, the Birmingham campus’s president. The football team could not become nationally competitive without tens of millions of dollars for new facilities and operations, he said, in addition to the subsidy it currently gets from the university.
“With the changing NCAA landscape, we expected there to be a need for further support and investment, but I can say that we were indeed shocked to see how much it would take,” Watts said. “The further we analyzed it, the clearer the decision became.”
Added Dr. Watts:
“It’s our fiduciary responsibility at the end of the day for athletics to work within a budget, just as every other part of the institution has to,” he said.
Inside Higher Education also quoted a UAB Faculty Senate member - speaking anonymously so he could speak “candidly” - who made another unpopular but obvious point:
“When people think of Alabama football they don’t think of Birmingham’s team.
“If (President Watts’) task force sees that football is losing a lot of money and it’s not going to get any better, then why would you want it?” the professor said. “Just because we’re at a school in Alabama we want football?”
The decision and 18-month study overlapped one of the most dismal seasons in UAB’s unspectacular football history.
In the 2013 season, per its own (very suspect) attendance numbers, UAB averaged only 11,589 fans at each home game - a figure that was the 2nd lowest of all Division 128 Division I football programs.
While average attendance was reported as 11,589 per game, real attendance might have been half this figure - approximately 6,000 fans per game in a stadium that had a capacity of more than 70,000 fans (giant tarps covered approximately 20,000 seats in the historic stadium).
Incensed UAB ‘supporters’ suddenly emerge…
Following the decision to cancel the program, the community and political response “sparked immense outrage, with players heartbroken and students protesting to save the program,” according to Google AI’s characterization, which is probably an understatement.
A Birmingham News headline captured the sentiments of incensed supporters:
“Mob taunts, curses Ray Watts as UAB football supporters leave in tears following announcement.”
Story excerpt: “Upset supporters, frustrated with silence from the administration, punched Watts’s car as he drove away, yelled obscenities, and flipped him off … A video posted online by a local TV reporter showed Watts engulfed by protesters as he left a meeting with the college’s football team.”
Almost immediately, protests were organized and virtually every prominent columnist and news writer in Birmingham joined the chorus, condemning a decision that was perceived as cruel and vindictive.
(A common view is/was that former UA trustees like Paul Bryant Jr. had long held a grudge against UAB sports and football and the decision, thus, had nothing to do with economic realities and was orchestrated to punish UAB sports and its fanbase - such as it was.)
Kevin Scarbinsky, at the time the state’s most prominent sports columnist, summarized the apoplectic reaction of Blazers’ fans.
“First, Watts ignored the people who care the most about UAB athletics before making the most devastating decision in program history. Then, he insulted them in a thousand different ways.”
The “flood-the-zone” media campaign worked and, in a few months UAB officials were “reconsidering” the decision. Six months later, in June 2015, the same trustees and president announced they would re-instate UAB football (and also the rifle and bowling teams that had been eliminated).
A Scarbinsky column about “Ray Watts’ mistake” quoted a UAB booster who made a common point, one that seemingly resonated with the Powers that Be:
A “big-time university” like UAB in a “a big city like Birmingham needs a Division I athletic program, including football,” said Steve DeMedicis.
In an email to President Watts, the booster wrote:
“I firmly believe if the football program at UAB is done away with there will be a dark cloud hanging over UAB that will never go away.”
The stated views of politicians and UA board members quickly changed 180 degrees
Wrote Birmingham News’ columnist Scarbinsky in a subsequent essay:
“UA System Board of Trustees members, who have never come out in support of UAB athletics, are now doing so.”
“There is support now that has never existed before,“ trustee Finis St. John said. “I don’t think anybody can argue that. As difficult as this year as been, nobody can argue that UAB athletics is now in a much better shape than it was before.
“It’s a success story. It wasn’t for many, many years. Now, it appears that it’s got a great future.”
Concluded Scarbinsky: “But this much is true: UAB football was dead, and now it’s in a better position than it ever was before.”
My editorial comment: Old-fashioned and honest “follow-up journalism” would prove this alleged “truth” was clearly not true - explaining, IMO, why honest, follow-up journalism is usually taboo in the corporate press.
According to Scarbinsky, “that level of unprecedented Birmingham support for UAB football played a major role in nudging the BOT out of the shadows and helping it see the light.”
The previous Narrative - that the trustees “don’t see the light” - flipped to a feel-good narrative about fans and citizens rallying to support a program they always (secretly) loved and supported.
Wrote al.com columnist Joe Goodman several years later:
“An entire city came together to save UAB football a few years ago, so this team knows what it means to represent something bigger than itself. Students were marching in the streets back in 2014 and 2015 in the hopes of saving UAB football, and that energy and spirit rallied a town to action.”
Added athletic director Mark Ingram: “clearly once (UAB football) was gone, everybody understood and realized it. It just took that, sadly, that we had to go through that ugliness to come out the other side. But we’re better for it. We’ve got more support than we’ve ever had … Really, it’s remarkable.”
***
For a brief shining moment, UAB football fans did show their love to the program most had never “consistently” supported.
As one might expect after such a drama, the first game UAB played after the program was re-started (in 2017) drew a record crowd of 47,000 to Legion Field.
In 2017, it was also reported that UAB sold a record number of season tickets (10,200).
However, UAB no longer publicizes how many season tickets the football programs sells and, as noted above, a big home game against rival Southern Miss in November of 2018 might have drawn as few as 6,000 to 8,000 fans.
Fans, who for decades stayed away from games in droves, went right back to their old habits. The support for UAB football was “consistently” awful and embarrassing.
Watts and the board of trustees were true to their word and, after reviving the football program, poured unprecedented amounts of money into the program.
For example, $22 million, largely financed by a bond issue, was spent to pay for a new football complex and practice fields. The school funded more expensive “cost of attendance” scholarships for football players. UAB football coaches were paid at least $4.1 million.
Build it and they will come?
And UAB finally got the modern, state-of-the-art football stadium boosters long said was sorely needed.
Legion Field, once the home to half of Alabama’s home games, was said to be in a state of disrepair and the stadium was said to be located in a neighborhood that had turned “bad” through the decades.
Once UAB football was revived - and citing the recently-discovered outpouring of fan support - UAB supporters and local politicians joined forces to fund a beautiful new stadium in downtown Birmingham. According to various sources, the 47,000-seat stadium cost $175 to $203 million.
The first game at Protective Life Stadium was played Oct. 2nd, 2021 and drew a crowd of more than 37,000.
The popular and successful coach Bill Clark, who resigned in 2022 due to a medical condition that caused chronic back pain, was still coaching the team.
While fans filled up 80 percent of the stadium for the stadium’s debut, the real “tell” about the popularity of UAB football was probably the next home game, which drew an “announced” crowd of only 25,191 fans against conference foe Florida Atlantic.
As this stadium photo from the UAB-FAU game seems to reveal, real “fannies-in-the-bleachers” attendance was probably at least 11,000 less than the official attendance.
Approximately 70 to 75 percent of seats were unoccupied for an early-season game of a UAB team that finished this season 9-4, a team led by the best coach the program’s ever had.
According to one Facebook comment Google AI discovered, attendance figures at UAB’s beautiful new stadium have been “utterly atrocious.”
(I did find one Birmingham TV station report from last season where the correspondent noted “WVTM 13 was at Saturday’s game and noticed there wasn’t a large crowd at the game.”
The “announced attendance” for UAB’s game with Tulane was 19,724. Readers can gauge the veracity of this figure by watching the 1:00 mark in this news clip.)
Other metrics to gauge fan interest …
Attendance figures are not the only metric that can be utilized to gauge “fan interest” (or lack thereof.)
Media coverage, fan websites and social media posts can also provide indications of program interest.
In working on this story, I visited UAB football and UAB athletics Facebook sites. For example, two weeks before the 2025 conference opener against Army, a UAB football Facebook site promoting this game had generated only three “likes” and no reader comments.
The leading source for Alabama news and sports news is al.com, a website I visit several times a day.
For years, I’ve noted that stories on “UAB football” almost never make the site’s home page. (Needless to say, the website is replete with stories and headlines about Alabama and Auburn football).
The website of the former Birmingham News employs only one writer who covers UAB football and these stories must draw embarrassing numbers of Page Views. That is, by counting story clicks, editors at al.com must know interest in UAB football is dismal.
Still, this is the same influential website that told readers “build it and they will come” and repeatedly argued that interest and passion in UAB football was far greater than the UA trustees had once (accurately) proclaimed.
Sports Talk Radio is also extremely popular in Alabama and I’ve been listening to these radio shows for decades. However, I could probably count on one hand the cumulative hours that radio co-hosts have devoted to UAB football.
In short, before trustees cancelled UAB football, interest in the program was effectively nil. After the program was cancelled, for a period of several months, the program experienced unprecedented interest. After the program was re-started in 2018, interest went right back to its four-decade Status Quo level.
The much-reviled Ray Watts and the “anti-UAB UA trustees” were absolutely correct when they stated an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed to support a Division I program that might generate more fan interest. Although a major boost in “investments” did ensue, fan interest - based on fan attendance and other metrics - never materialized.
For some reason, hard data on UAB expenses and revenues is hard to find
For this article, I tried to calculate how much money UAB is, arguably, flushing down the toilet to “support” a program only a few thousand fans support by going to a game.
I discovered it’s hard to find pertinent numbers because UAB and the state’s “watchdog” journalists don’t disclose this data (and UAB is a public “tax-payer supported” college).
When I queried Google AI about UAB football revenues and expenses, I got these responses:
“The specific budget for the UAB football program in 2024 is not readily available.”
“Based on available public financial reports for the fiscal year 2024 … information on UAB football’s financial performance is limited in the search results.”
When I tried to find out how many season tickets UAB football sold from 2018-2025, I got this answer:
“While UAB does sell season tickets, The University of Alabama at Birmingham does not publish the exact number of season tickets sold.”
However, if a researcher is trying to find out expense and revenue data about our state’s two most prominent football programs (Alabama and Auburn), pages of data come up.
For example, the University of Alabama football program had $113.8 million in expenses in fiscal 2024. Alabama athletics also brought in $234.8 million in revenue that year, almost all of the revenue from the sport of football.
Interestingly, the above data was obtained by al.com from an “open records request,” prompting me to wonder why our state’s leading news organization isn’t curious to learn (and report to readers) how much money UAB football has lost in recent years, which should be a major story based on the cited reason the program had once been shutdown.
Regarding season ticket sales, I did find a recent story that revealed the Birmingham City Council, as it does every year, had voted to purchase 1,200 season tickets for this football season at a cost to tax-payers of $200,000.
The City like, other corporate sponsors, buys allotments of tickets and passes them out for free to area youth and employees who may (or may not) go to the game.
(I also learned that the cost of one UAB season ticket - which includes six games - is $99 to $188, a figure lower than the cost of a typical secondary market ticket for one Alabama game, all of which are sold out in a 100,000-seat stadium).
How much $ is UAB football and athletics losing?
From journalists outside our state, I was able to obtain a rough estimate of how much money it costs to fund the UAB football program and how much money UAB athletics loses every year.
(Source material on revenues and expenses for UAB and many other college programs can be read here … here …. here (USA Today analysis) … and here. )
According to one citizen journalist who analyzed data from all public universities in 2022-2023, UAB was spending $14.1 million on football two seasons ago. The same story said football expenses are increasing at least 5 percent per year, meaning UAB is, spending at least $15.6 million on football this year.
Another article noted that Division I football expenses “nearly tripled” between the years of 2003 to 2018, going from an average of $7.5 million per program to over $22 million.
However, after the shut-down controversy, UAB embarked on a major spending spree. For example, the program floated bonds of at least $22 million to build a new football complex and practice fields. The school and/or its corporate sponsors are also spending $4 million/year in new debt service to pay its share of the new $200 million football stadium (see Reader Comments for the break-down on annual debt payments for this stadium).
As noted above, Ray Watts and the board of trustees estimated they would have to spend an additional $50 million between 2015-2019 to hopefully make UAB a winning-calibre Division I program.
It’s probably conservative to estimate that UAB is currently spending at least $17 million on football each year.
It’s unknown how much revenue UAB football produces, but given the American Athletic Conference doesn’t have a major TV contract and ticket sales and attendance figures are so low, the football program is likely losing at least $10 million year. (It’s probably safe to guess that expenses are at least twice as much as non-subsidy revenues).
From other sources, I learned that 63 percent of UAB’s athletic budget is subsidized by tuition, student fees and direct contributions from the university.
In fiscal 2022, total athletic expenses at UAB were $38.9 million.
On the “revenue” side of the accounting ledger, UAB (and/or tax-payers) contributed $24.151 million.
In fairness, almost all colleges that sponsor Division I athletics lose money. One analysis said only 18 of 229 Division I sports programs - just 7.8 percent - made money from sports.
However, UAB loses far more than most college sports programs.
According to one analysis from 2019-2020, a typical Division I program lost $16 million every year (a figure that, six years later, and given rampant inflation, is now probably much larger). As of two years ago, UAB athletics was losing $24.1 million/year, the figure that the school had to contribute to make the athletic program “break even.”
Again, it would seem the question of how much money UAB football makes or loses in football would be of keen interest given the program almost became the first program in 30 years to eliminate football.
The answer to this question could also settle a debate that occurred in 2014-2015 after the program was shut down.
As noted, University trustees cited an “18-month study” that said the program was losing many millions of dollars each year and would lose far more money in the future.
However, supporters who wanted to continue the program commissioned their own study that said UAB football was actually making money every year, a claim that strikes me as akin to the claim that the Covid vaccines saved “millions of lives” and prevented Covid infections (or that the rate of “inflation is low and contained.”)
Common sense says UAB football must be losing more money than ever (a figure that will increase with the $2.8 million buyout of the former head coach’s salary and the hiring of a new, probably more expensive, head coach).
Still, as this headline from our state’s largest news organization told readers in 2015:
“One year after shutdown, UAB football is in position to thrive”
Football can be justified as a branding or marketing expense …
A common (and perhaps legitimate) argument for subsidizing college sports programs is that any financial investment in college football is a way to enhance the “brand” of given college or market the university to prospective students. Also, a successful or competitive sports program gives alumni, who might become important donors, something to crow about or that could become a source of pride.
However, in UAB’s case, this particular brand - of losing teams, empty stadiums and disinterested fans - might actually be harming the school’s image.
As an editorial opinion, except for 100 or so football players, it’s hard for me to imagine that any UAB student chose to attend this college because of the Blazers’ stellar and exciting football program and memorable “game-day experience.”
UAB, which is the largest employer in the state of Alabama, is actually best known for its medical school and hospital as well as its (alleged) invaluable scientific and medical research.
For context regarding revenue producers, I learned a couple of years ago that UAB’s Department of Infectious Diseases was awarded a $37.5 million grant by Anthony Fauci’s NIAID to fund safety trials for the Covid drug remdesivir (alternative media nickname: “Run, death is near”). The value of this one grant (of many UAB receives) far exceeds the revenue all 18 UAB sports programs generate in several years.
A comparison to my alma mater, Troy University
Above, I mentioned that I watched the televised game between Army and UAB, not because I cared much about the outcome but because I was interested in gauging the size of the UAB home crowd.
Three seasons ago another Army team travelled to Troy, Alabama to play one of my two favorite teams, the Troy University Trojans.
I attended this game, which was a hard sellout of 31,000 fans - real numbers revealed by real “fannies in the bleachers.”
I note that Troy University has an enrollment of approximately 7,000 on-campus students compared to UAB’s enrollment of 20,900.
The population of the city of Troy is 19,000 compared to the Birmingham metro area’s population of 1.1 million. UAB also probably has 20 times more faculty members and employees than Troy University’s main campus.
For Troy students, fans, school employees and alumni, “our” team playing the country’s best-known military academy was a very big deal and, not surprisingly to myself, Trojan fans showed up in mass.
For comparison purposes, If one excludes Army fans, maybe 6,500 UAB fans turned out to support the Blazers two Saturdays ago in Birmingham.
(If one calculates attendance from “tickets sold” and not “turnstile” attendance and UAB really sold more than 22,200 tickets, it’s obvious the vast majority of fans who’d previously purchased tickets or received free tickets didn’t bother to attend the game, which was not competing against an Alabama or Auburn game.)
I knew UAB football was going to be a flop 15 to 20 years ago when UAB travelled to Troy to face the Trojans. I also attended this game, which had an impressive local crowd. However, I was stunned to see that only about 150 to 200 UAB fans made the 2 hour and 15-minute drive to Troy to support their team.
Troy had also played UAB at Legion Field several times and I, in fact, attended Troy’s first game against UAB in 1994.
At that game, little Troy had at least 10,000 fans in Legion Field. So while 10,000 Troy fans could and did travel to Birmingham to see our team face a “state rival”, only about 200 UAB fans travelled to Troy (and most fans were probably family members of team members).
At the time, my thought was the same then as it is now:
“Nobody (at UAB) really cares about UAB football.”
In Conclusion …
So in 2014 when the Powers that Be on the University of Alabama board of trustees announced they were going to pull the plug on UAB football and use tens of millions of dollars in savings to support other sports or academic programs, I was stunned and impressed that “leaders” - adults in the room - still existed who had the courage to make such a bold, but easily-justified decision.
Alas, these brave leaders quickly wilted under a hurricane of dubious blowback. With a loud assist from an outraged Birmingham press corp, UAB’s leaders not only rescinded the decision, but decided to spend even more money on a massive money-losing proposition.
Skip forward 11 years and no person in the state press or in a position of authority has the integrity or courage to admit they were wrong or to mention the elephant in the room - namely that large herds of African pachyderms could probably fit in the empty seats at UAB football games.
When it comes to funding a football program that’s never had consistent support or doing something radical like abolishing the TSA, or even more stunning - like many citizens and influential press members admitting they were spectacularly wrong … what should happen … won’t happen and probably never will.
As far as I can tell, no “leader” possesses the guts to axe programs that probably shouldn’t have been created in the first place.
Be it brazen or borderline, in all public arenas, fraud often works and is unlikely to be exposed.
Re: Troy’s decision to move to Division I in athletics (from Division II) ...I could make the case that, in hindsight, this very bold and audacious decision might have saved our college.
Troy’s on-campus enrollment at the time was only about 3,800 students. Furthermore, about 30 percent of Troy’s students came from neighboring states of Florida and Georgia.
Around the same time, both states offered lottery scholarships to in-state students with a B average. These lottery scholarships eliminated a large percentage of Troy’s prospective students.
By starting D-I football and sports, I think Troy did enhance its “brand” and gave students another reason to attend Troy. This move was also a “source of pride” for alumni (who are potential donors.)
Today, I look around and see more and more students who are getting their college degrees on-line (an inflation work-around and a time saver).
Several brick-and-mortar college campuses have already closed, including Troy’s Phenix City campus. I wouldn’t be surprised if Troy-Dothan and Troy-Montgomery also close in the future.
That leaves Troy’s best market of future students as high school graduates who are seeking a “traditional,” on-campus education, which includes popular experiences like football game weekends, sorority and fraternity memberships and enjoying the beauty of a pretty campus.
Since it went Division I, Troy’s campus has become (arguably) the prettiest in Alabama. The improvement in athletic facilities led to many other campus beautification projects.
In short, Troy is now well-positioned to gets its fair share of traditional college students.
If Troy hadn’t made the move to Division I athletics, our college wouldn’t be nearly as well-positioned as it is today … IMO.
BONUS CONTENT:
Protective Stadium, home of the UAB Blazers football program, cost an estimated $175 to $203 million. The 47,000-seat stadium in downtown Birmingham opened in the fall of 2021.
A bond issue, which will take 30 years to re-pay, financed the construction costs.
Here is the annual debt service amounts of the main partners in the project:
* Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center (BJCC) Authority: $10.7 million annual debt service
* UAB (and corporate partners): $4 million annual debt service. (Notably and interestingly, UAB’s financial pledge/commitment is just 10 years, not 30.)
* City of Birmingham: $3 million annually
* Jefferson County: $1 million
*Protective Life Company: $1 million/year for naming rights for at least 15 years.
Note: a tax increase of 3.5 percent on any car rentals in Jefferson County also helped underwrite the costs.
The largest crowd to see a football game at the stadium was 37,000 in the first game. As noted in my article, the second game at the stadium might have had only 10,000 or so fans. I think only about 8,000 fans attended the most recent home game against a name opponent (Army) in a key conference game.
Fans said "build it and we will come" ... City Officials built it ... and fans did not come.