A (Football) Tale of 2 Universities

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/12/16/one-universitys-decision-drop-football-should-be-model-others-essay

The college football frenzy, where schools are in an athletic arms race, feeling it necessary to send spend ridiculous funds on high coaches' salaries and fancy facilities to not suffer athletic humiliation and the wrath of angry alumni and fans, is taking full force as bowl season is right around the corner.  Despite this, University of Alabama Birmingham has ended the school's football program after the regular season came to a close.

Its stadium, Legion Field, which seats 72,000 people, could barely hold an average attendance of 15,000 people per game since Alabama and Auburn takes the spotlight.  UAB lost $18 million on athletics annually, mainly because of football, so cutting the sport help eliminate some of the loss without having to spend millions of dollars on new facilities.

Contrasting the UAB experience is Ohio University.  Their average attendance is the same, but the stadium's capacity is just 24,00.  Ohio State University takes fans from OU, just like UAB has been experiencing.  The school also losses $18 million on athletics annually.  Despite of the loss in money, OU has a different plan; they will had a study hall for athletes costing $5 million.

From the schools here (UAB and OU), I think UAB will be better off in the long hall.  They know that they cannot compete financially in athletics in the state of Alabama, so the college would be saving themselves a ton of money.
OU might be making a mistake in taking their football program active and spending millions on extra dollars on unnecessary libraries.  The university is just wasting their money on sports instead of spending money on necessary fine arts programs and scholarships on striving students.