Having a career in the corporate world for over 30 years I have personally seen this happen twice.

Does not matter what the issue is.

1. The President first meets with the consulting group alone and slants or poses the question he wants answered.

2. Then The President invites the consulting group in and this time a dozen employees are invited. These employees think this is the first meeting with the consultants.

3. The Consultants do their study. It may involve visiting the company and interviewing employees and evaluating any matrix the company wants studied.

4. Then the Consultants return to meet with the President alone and present the results of the study.

5. The president provides the input to the consultants to make it say what his goal is.

6. Then the President invites the consulting group back in with the dozen employees in the room to hear the unbiased results of the study.

This whole time the dozen employees are totally unaware that there were any more meetings than the 2 meetings they attended. (The President or Board get the outcome they wanted and the consultants get paid and someone gets screwed)

I saw this first hand at 2 different organizations....

Yup. You can produce reports to reflect the desire result. A study or report could have easily been done to show ways to increase revenue for UAB Athletics if that is what Watts and the BOT wanted.