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

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/02/cusa-rep...tournament

"Having the tourney in relative centrally located Birmingham certainly seemed like a good idea for the league - until the school chose to eliminate football and alienated much of its fan base."

Ray Watts is incompetent and negligent to the point of criminality. What a disaster he is. His goal is failure for UAB athletics, not success. Is there any other university in the nation that has to put up with the crap that UAB does?

No. There is not.

(02-26-2015 02:31 PM)DragonClaw Wrote:  Ray Watts is incompetent and negligent to the point of criminality. What a disaster he is. His goal is failure for UAB athletics, not success. Is there any other university in the nation that has to put up with the crap that UAB does?

No. There is not.

Ray Watts continues to be the lightning rod for our discontent, but he remains only the "hit man" whose fingerprints are the only ones on the "murder weapon" he wielded as prescribed by his bosses who gave him his "contract". As long as THEY are pleased with his performance, the feelings of the rest of us don't matter. Is there any university that must serve under such a hostile and vendetta driven leadership in America?

As the year passes, we will see how all their plan for all of UAB's athletic programs plays out. My concern is that in their ultimate plan, the athletic programs were just the opening shot.

To be blunt, I'm not sure Watts has anything to do with the poor ticket sales. Birmingham isn't going to purchase tickets ahead of time to games that won't sell out for teams that they might only care about 1 or 2. The success of the tournament will ride on the play of UAB.

(02-26-2015 03:35 PM)GreenMississippi Wrote:  To be blunt, I'm not sure Watts has anything to do with the poor ticket sales. Birmingham isn't going to purchase tickets ahead of time to games that won't sell out for teams that they might only care about 1 or 2. The success of the tournament will ride on the play of UAB.

I agree. We undersold the tournament in 1999, but was bailed out by visiting fans from Louisville, Memphis, and Cinicinnati. Hosting a tournament is a great idea until you have to take off work, and pay for overpriced tournament tickets. Blazer fans will support games that UAB play in, but getting them out on Wednesday to watch FIU and Rice is not going to be an easy sell.

This is where we miss MAckin. He had a lot of corporate ties, and would have convinced a lot of corporations to buy all session books. I don't know that Ealy has the connections.

That seems to be a fair assessment. I don't know Ealy's background.
In keeping with our tradition of blaming and shaming, we should certainly throw the loss of Brain Mackin back on Watts, ergo the lack of corporate ticket sales are also on the ground before punkinhead's size 6's.

What the termination of UAB football did was add another variable to the equation of ticket sales. Now, if UAB fans are shamed into buying lots of tickets, will the Ray Watts supporters say "See, football didn't matter!" and if UAB fans don't buy lots of tickets, will they be portrayed as the "meanies" who embarrassed the school's programs "out of spite". Either way, it's likely the city will be "on the hook" for whichever result we see.

Pretty simple answer: Buy tickets. Wear #freeUAB gear and bring signs supporting UAB football for every game.

Our frustration will be televised.

(02-26-2015 05:34 PM)UABslant Wrote:  Pretty simple answer: Buy tickets. Wear #freeUAB gear and bring signs supporting UAB football for every game.

Our frustration will be televised.

Not trying to be a smart ass, but what exactly is this going to do for us? Yeah, it'll be televised, but most people watching will be CUSA fans and already know the deal. I have no problem joining in, I just don't see it doing much good for us.

Writing lots of emails and getting on television solves all problems.

Yeah. Shutting up and staying home saying nothing will be much better.

Neither plan works real well.

What C-USA official said if UAB sells tickets then UAB won't get kicked out the conference and visa versa?
All we have is speculation on the ramification of ticket sells and that connected to us staying in C-USA.

No, there is no promise that selling a bunch of tickets gets us more time. What we do know is that if ticket sales flop it will not be a point in our favor. That seems elementary.

(02-26-2015 07:17 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Neither plan works real well.

I would assume buying tickets AND continuing to voice displeasure at the tournament would cover all our bases.

What do you suggest?

(02-26-2015 07:17 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Neither plan works real well.

It was explored in another thread that the only tactical approaches to show our displeasure all struck at UAB since we have no effective way to strike at the UA in Tuscaloosa or the UA Medical Center (which are the ONLY campuses the BOT really care about). Any damage done to the UAB undergrad side is considered "acceptable collateral damage" by the BOT.

Supporting the tournament is of huge importance. Whether or not it would keep us in CUSA is irrelevant. I think our staying or going will be decided on by larger issues than that. But, if we are kicked out of CUSA, the stronger CUSA tournament we can put on, the better. No matter where we land (CUSA or some other conference), we need to make a strong showing to increase the odds that we will be at least in a rotation of hosts for our conference tournament. It is a huge advantage.

Any word on how ticket sales are at present?

Assuming that we do get booted out of C-USA, it seems to me that a good showing of hosting the tournament would help get us into consideration for a better landing spot.

I find it hard to believe that CUSA is booting us out at the end of the year. I think we are being given that amount of time to figure **** out. If we don't have plans in place to restore football, we might as well leave volunatarily rather than dealing with the embarrassment of having schools we brought into the conference kick us out. I don't know what this task force is going to be able to accomplish, but they are our best hope at this point in my mind.

(02-27-2015 01:34 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Assuming that we do get booted out of C-USA, it seems to me that a good showing of hosting the tournament would help get us into consideration for a better landing spot.

Is anyone even trying to get us in a better landing spot?