The UAB Football team plays in its second bowl game ever Friday when they take on Ohio University in the Bahamas Bowl. The game caps the Blazers’ first season back on the field after being shut down over financial concerns in 2014.
The team is eight and four this season, a dramatic turnaround given the Blazers hadn’t played a single game for two years.
Coach Bill Clark says this bowl game means one thing: validity.
“I think everything we talked about wanting to be competitive, maybe we were a little past that,” says Clark. “To get in a bowl game and get in a great bowl game against a really good opponent, I think it says everything about where this program is headed.”
UAB Athletic Director Mark Ingram wasn’t surprised the team was successful. “But I don’t want to act like I predicted they would win this many games,” Ingram says.
Ingram says this season has been better for the bottom line too. Merchandising and licensing revenue is up, as are donations. An average of 26,000 fans attended each home game this season; that’s about 4,500 more than the last season the Blazers played.
That makes sense to Darin White who leads Samford University’s Center for Sports Analytics.
“It all boils down to eyeballs,” White says.
In other words, the more people watching your team, the more money you can generate. Winning helps grab eyeballs.
Andy Schwarz, a California-based economist, has been following the Blazers. He says UAB was already riding a wave of support as they returned to play. But their performance on the field keeps people excited, putting the team on better footing longer term.
“In this case, it probably will go a long way to make sure that first year is not sort of a honeymoon effect that fades very quickly,” says Schwartz.
UAB opened new football practice facilities and offices this fall. Ingram says he’s already added academic support staff and trainers for student athletes. He says those sorts of things are essential to stay competitive in college athletics.
But college athletics is dominated by the largest conferences such as the SEC and the Big 10. Ingram believes that hurts schools like UAB, which compete in smaller conferences.
“It creates this misperception, this misconception that we’re not as important, we’re not as good, we’re not as valuable,” says Ingram.
He argues every college athletic program is trying to do the same thing. They’re trying to win, to graduate students and be a positive force in their communities.
He hopes this season is a springboard for UAB so that in the future the Blazers’ success won’t be particularly surprising.
“It’s no longer a shock that somehow we became bowl eligible and went to a bowl,” says Ingram. “Nope, this is what UAB does.”
A win in the Bahamas would be the latest step toward that.