UAB announces its shutting down football program

[El Supremo]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — UAB is shutting down the football program after one of the Blazers' stronger seasons, the first school to make that cost-cutting move in nearly two decades.

The university announced the decision Tuesday minutes after President Ray Watts met with the Blazers players and coaches, while several hundred UAB students and fans gathered outside for the third straight day in efforts to support the program. UAB made the decision after a campus-wide study conducted by a consulting firm over the past year.

"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 in a statement released by the university. "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."

UAB said in the release that it subsidizes $20 million of the athletic department's operating budget of some $30 million annually, and said both those numbers rank fifth in Conference USA. The university said the difference over the next five years would be an extra $49 million with football, including a projected $22 million needed for football facilities and upgrades.

more at: http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_27054781/uab-announces-its-shutting-down-football-program

They are smart. I think that because of the concussion issues that football, as we know it now will face, will be dead.

I wish the CU Buffs would do the same thing.

[Scuba]

1. CU gave their football program the long, slow death penalty a few years ago. At a lot ...

... of schools, football is footing the bill for other sports. At Wisconsin, for example, revenues from football, mens basketball and hockey fund everything else, from women's basketball to rowing.