UTEP Football

[OsoFromELP]

Hypothetical question, since I doubt it will ever happen anyways. This question was triggered after reading this letter to the editor "UTEP should think about playing Division II football".

Would it be possible for UTEP to drop to FCS football level and compete in, say the Southland Conference, but have all other sports in Division I and compete in, say the WAC, which doesn't sponsor football?

 

[utep2step]

Hypothetical question, since I doubt it will ever happen anyways. This question was triggered after reading this letter to the editor "UTEP should think about playing Division II football".

Would it be possible for UTEP to drop to FCS football level and compete in, say the Southland Conference, but have all other sports in Division I and compete in, say the WAC, which doesn't sponsor football?

This debate is so old it has grown a long dirty, bird nest infested beard.

Once you hit the highest division, you don't want to go down.

NMSU is a Land Grant College, right? They cut women's equestrian program to save football. Let that sink in.

 

[unihorn]

Football funds other athletic programs, so doing this would hurt your entire program.

 

[JCorona]

Might as well kill athletics all together.

 

[utep2step]

Also, over the last two or three decades, UTEP has emphatically stated that it will not happen.

 

[OsoFromELP]

Football funds other athletic programs, so doing this would hurt your entire program.

I'd say men's basketball is UTEP's biggest revenue generator, although not in recent years. Besides, I remember reading a report some time ago that collectively, UTEP athletics run in the red.

 

[minerfan_14]

I'd say men's basketball is UTEP's biggest revenue generator, although not in recent years. Besides, I remember reading a report some time ago that collectively, UTEP athletics run in the red.

All programs suffered because of low ticket revenue. Football is the “cash cow” for all others.

2step is right, we’ve talked about this so many times, time to move on.

 

[UTEPMiners8106]

Just looking at the BBall schedule you have 14 home games and that includes the Sun Bowl Invitational. Capacity is listed at 12,222. So at best you are looking at 171,108 fans over the course of a season. Max.
Football has six home games and a capacity of 51,500. That means at max you would have 309,000 attending games over the season. Or at least the potential.

In 2017 UTEP averaged 6,400 fans per game for a total of 102,403 throughout a 16 game home schedule.
Last year UTEP football averaged 19,548 per game for a total of 97,740 fans.

I get people want to believe/think baskeball is the major revenue sport. But per game, a WINLESS UTEP team averaged 13,000 more than Basketball, per game. Now you throw in money from parking, concessions, BOOZE etc, per game UTEP football probably brings in way more money. Plus if we ditch football I’m sure our conference revenue will drop and that also helps to supplement athletics as well. We would essentially be signing our own death warrant.

At the end of the day the possibility (as hopeless as it may be) of a sold out Sun Bowl Stadium and the potential revenue associated with it will always drive UTEP to keep football.