University of Alabama at Birmingham to end football program, citing costs

[December 03, 2014]  BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Reuters) - The University of Alabama at Birmingham will shutter its football program at the end of the current season due to the increasing costs associated with it, the school said on Tuesday.

The UAB Blazers have struggled to draw fans in a state where they are overshadowed by two national college football powerhouses, the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Eliminating the NCAA Division I program will free the university from spending tens of millions of dollars on the it in the coming years, the school said.

"When considering a model that best protects the financial future and prominence of the Athletic Department, football is simply not sustainable," Ray Watts, the university's president, said in a statement.

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, UAB's average home attendance in 2013 was 10,548, less than a quarter of the home-game average of 45,192 for the powerhouse Football Bowl Subdivision, in which the Blazers competed.

Among schools in the subdivision, 44 percent lost money on their football programs last year, according to NCAA numbers. The average loss was $3.8 million.

As Watts met with the team at the university's football office on Tuesday, fans gathered outside to protest the decision. Angry fans later shouted at Watts as he left the meeting and walked toward a vehicle under the police guard, video from local Fox 6 News showed.

"I hate that we're going through this. It's like a death," UAB football coach Bill Clark told reporters after learning of the team's fate.

In his first season with the Blazers, Clark led the team to a 6-6 record, which had qualified them as eligible to play in a bowl game for the first time in a decade.

The university, which has more than 11,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate students, will also eliminate its bowling and rifle teams at the end of the current school year but will not cut the total amount of money it spends on athletics, the school said.

The football team, which competed in the Conference USA athletic conference, played its first NCAA-sanctioned game in 1991, according to the school.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Writing by Jonathan Kaminsky; Editing by Sandra Maler, Eric Beech and David Gregorio)

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