The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s decision to shut down its football program provoked cries of outrage from the campus and shock within the national football media. No Football Bowl Subdivision program has ceased operations outright since the University of the Pacific did so in 1995.

Related: Watch the emotional football players confront the UAB President

But while Pacific is a small private school in California, UAB is a public university located in the heart of college football country. And the end of UAB football may signal the start of a contraction within the FBS as the SEC and other power conferences move toward autonomy.

UAB by the numbers

UAB retained CarrSports Consulting, LLC, to compare the five-year cost of maintaining its football program in Conference USA versus proceeding without football at all. This was an all-or-nothing study.

CarrSports apparently did not consider other alternatives, such as dropping UAB football down to the Football Championship Subdivision or even Division II or III. Instead, the priority was determining the best way for UAB to maintain an overall Division I athletic program.

The NCAA requires Division I members field scholarship teams in at least 14 sports, seven of which must be women’s sports. UAB presently has 12 women’s sports teams and six men’s teams. In addition to football, UAB will also eliminate women’s rifle and women’s bowling. It will then need to add men’s track and cross country teams in order to comply with Title IX’s gender-balance requirements.

According to CarrSports, UAB would have to invest an additional $47.5 million over the next five years just to remain competitive within Conference USA.

Although UAB isn’t exactly competitive right now: Since joining the conference in 1999, UAB has produced just three winning seasons and never won more than seven games. (Ironically, CarrSports president Bill Carr helped bring UAB into Conference USA when he was athletic director at Houston.)

CarrSports projected an operating shortfall of $5.1 million for 2015-2016 if UAB retained football. Without football, the athletic department is projected to run a $400,000 surplus. On the flip side, losing football will also mean a 55% drop in revenue, from about $7.5 million in 2014-2015 to $3.2 million in 2015-2016.

UAB will also forgo planned improvements to football facilities, which CarrSports said would have cost $22.2 million. Instead, the school will focus its capital expenditures on soccer, baseball and softball, and track and field.

How does this affect the SEC?

UAB’s shutdown will have a short-term impact on the SEC’s non-conference schedule. Tennessee was scheduled to play the Blazers in 2015, with Kentucky following suit in 2016. UAB will have to pay nearly $1.5 million to get out of those contracts.

There is also the potential for political and media backlash against Alabama. Many UAB supporters blame their football program’s demise on the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees, specifically board member Paul Bryant, Jr., son of legendary Crimson Tide coach Bear Bryant. As reported by Jon Solomon of CBS Sports last month, “To UAB supporters, there is no doubt Bryant Jr. plans to finally kill UAB football before he leaves the board this year after a decades-old feud tied to Gene Bartow, the late founder of UAB athletics.”

But UAB’s decision was likely driven more by the present-day politics of the NCAA than an old argument between coaches.

The CarrSports report referenced the “ongoing Division I restructuring” as a key factor underlying its analysis. This restructuring includes proposals to increase the amount of scholarships—to cover the so-called full cost of attendance—and grant the SEC and other major conferences greater autonomy in their decision-making.

These proposals will inevitably increase the operating costs for all football programs. And unlike the SEC, Conference USA members do not have the luxury of escalating television contracts to cushion the financial blow. UAB therefore faced the prospect of spending millions of dollars—either through increased student fees or taking on debt—just to maintain its standing as a second-rate program in a second-tier conference.

UAB will not be the last mid-major program to face the prospect of dropping football unless the NCAA undertakes an even more radical change in its governance structure.

The NCAA may want to consider reducing the number of required sports for Division I membership while granting full independence to the SEC and other major football conferences. Taking the Football Bowl Subdivision out of the Division I equation entirely may be the best way to prevent other schools from taking the same drastic measures as UAB.