When the clock rolls to midnight on Saturday, UAB athletics director Mark Ingram will be sound asleep in his bed. Or wide awake with anticipation for what he describes as not so much as anti-climactic but a moment briefly passing in an instant.

More than 20 years since joining Conference USA, and the last remaining member of the inaugural charter, UAB, along with six other current CUSA institutions, is set to become full-fledged members of the American Athletic Conference.

A little more than two years since announcing the additions of Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA, the AAC officially welcomes its newest brethren on July 1.

“We’re obviously excited about Saturday and I think it’s going to be a lot like Y2K,” Ingram said. “This thing happened. All right, we’re moving on. But we’re excited about the fall and what that’s going to bring. When our volleyball and soccer teams start to play in August, then we’ll really start to feel like we’re in the league and things are changing. Hopefully, all the power won’t shut off and your computers will reset to zero.”

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Although there are no coordinated events on UAB’s campus to celebrate the occasion, during Tuesday’s city council meeting, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin proclaimed Saturday, July 1, as UAB Day in the city of Birmingham. Additionally, multiple downtown buildings and other sites — Protective Stadium, Regions Harbert Plaza, Sloss Furnace, City Hall, Regions Field, UAB Campus Building, UAB Athletics Facilities, City Walk and ALDOT Highways — will be lit up in Green and Gold to signify the move to the American.

“It’s really exciting that the mayor would do that and I appreciate it very much,” Ingram said. “The city and the city council, and our County Commission, they’ve all been so supportive of our progress and have been a major player in that, especially as it relates to Protective Stadium. The exposure that we are going to have with the American Conference is significant and a dramatic increase in exposure which allows us to carry our brand so much farther and into so many more households.”

Far removed from CUSA’s obtrusive television deal, one that included stream-surfing through Stadium, CBS Sports Network and other random broadcasts, UAB games, most notably in football, will all be available on ESPN’s family of networks.

Considering Birmingham’s two-decade streak of being the top market for college football viewership, UAB’s breakthrough into network broadcasts is a significant upgrade for not only the ardently faithful UAB fan base but for the greater college football community.

“We’re easier to find and that will allow the casual fan to watch us,” Ingram said. “We’ve got a lot of people that are pulling for us and wish us well, and it’s just going to give them an opportunity to watch us more easily than they have in the past.”

Inarguably, the most important aspect of the transition to the American will be the eventual increase in UAB’s operating budget. While Ingram did not have an exact figure on future budget increases, it is possible that the department could balance out in the near future and eventually turn a profit on a consistent basis.

According to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, in 2022, UAB’s total expenses were $39.89 million while generating $38.35 million in revenue — a loss of $1.54 million. However, UAB’s total athletics debt of $14,985,000 in 2017 has decreased by more than $1.25 million between 2017 and 2022.

“It’s a long-term growth model and our hope is that, by having opponents that people are more familiar with, our attendance increases and our revenues increases, from a marketing standpoint or ticket sales standpoint,” Ingram said. “That’s also an area of growth for us that we hope will help improve our budget. When it comes to ticket sales, we’ve already seen a great improvement there. As we get into the season, that’s where we will be able to really measure how many more tickets we sold. We have a surge in ticket sales about a month before the season starts and we haven’t gotten quite there yet, but we are on pace with where we have been. We’ve already seen a really big spike on the marketing side which is encouraging.”

When Ingram was hired away from Temple University in 2015, his initial mission was not to move UAB into a new athletic conference. Through the tireless efforts of Ingram, administrators, coaches and players and the donor and fan bases, an athletic foundation was created and facilities built in rapid succession to supplement the continuously growing university and its athletic department.

Without those two devices and actual athletic success, the UAB athletic department became a highly-attractive target of the American when it entered into its latest round of realignment a few years ago. Ingram, for his part, saw first-hand the creation of the American and still has strong relationships with many current AAC institution administrators and coaches.

A valuable commodity in the ever-changing landscape of college athletics.

“I know the athletic director at Temple, Arthur Johnson, we used to work together at Georgia,” Ingram said. “The athletic director at East Carolina, John Gilbert, we worked together at Tennessee, and the athletic director at Memphis, Laird Veatch, we worked together at Missouri and were neighbors — our wives had children on the same day together, 10 hours apart. The AD at SMU, his dad and I used to work together. There’s a lot of personal connectivity between me and a lot of those guys. The longer you’re in this business, the more people you know and the more relationships you have and connect with. It’s easily lost on us but the sportsmanship in our game is critically important.”