The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(12-04-2016 10:06 PM)Dragonz Lair Wrote:  

(12-04-2016 08:25 PM)hooverblazer Wrote:  We don't need to reduce the size of Bartow. Just last season we had the following attendance in CUSA games:

6835 vs North Texas
6664 vs FIU
6211 vs FAU
7190 vs Marshall
7510 vs WKU

Those are strong crowds against teams most people in Birmingham don't care about. The only capacity reduction I'd be ok with would be removing ~500 seats by adding suites.

The problem is we still are a young university in comparison to UA, AU, and most colleges out there. It takes time to build a fan base and we just have to keep adding to it year by year with more graduates and more new students. Also, because of our relative youth and the dominance of UA and AU in this state, we have a lot of fans in the "I support UAB unless they're playing AU/UA" camp and last night was one of those instances.

We can have solid attendance like last year, but we have to win regularly (see 26 win season) and make the NCAA tournament. However, making the tournament now is much harder than it was in the days of Mike Anderson because of the weakening of our conference.

BINGO...people were coming last season to see UAB play...regardless of the opponent because we were piling up the wins...and I agree overall CUSA is way too big and watered down...but we still have quality programs that have won before...UAB, Old Dominion, Charlotte and Western Kentucky - these teams were with us in the old Sun Belt and bring familiarity...just win baby

I'm sorry, but touting old Sunbelt teams as a draw due to familiarity won't fly much anymore, particularly with young alumni. It's been how long since we were in the Sunbelt?