Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States, on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It is the home field of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team of the Southeastern Conference (SEC).
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a public research university in Birmingham, Alabama. Founded in 1969 and part of the University of Alabama System, UAB has grown to be the state's largest employer, with more than 24,200 faculty and staff and over 53,000 jobs at the university. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Legion Field is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States in Birmingham, Alabama, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but occasionally used for other large outdoor events. Opened in 1927, it is named in honor of the American Legion, a U.S. organization of military veterans.
BBVA USA was a bank headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. It was a subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria from 2007 until 2021, when it was acquired by PNC Financial Services. It operated mainly in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas. The bank was earlier named Central Bank and Trust Company, Central Bank, Central Bancshares of the South, and Compass Bancshares.
Houston Dynamo FC is an American professional soccer club based in Houston. The Dynamo compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Established on December 15, 2005, the club was founded after their former owners relocated the San Jose Earthquakes' players and staff to Houston following the 2005 season. For their first six seasons in Houston, the Dynamo played at Robertson Stadium on the campus of the University of Houston. During the 2012 season, the club moved to Shell Energy Stadium, a soccer-specific stadium in East Downtown Houston.
The Birmingham Bowl is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBS college football bowl game played annually in Birmingham, Alabama. First held in 2006, the game is owned and operated by ESPN Events. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) also provides marketing, management and game-day operations support. The game was previously known as the PapaJohns.com Bowl (2006–2010) and the BBVA Compass Bowl (2011–2014). TicketSmarter signed on as the title sponsor of the 2019 game, making it the TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl. From its inception through 2020, the game was played at Legion Field; since the December 2021 game, it has been held at Protective Stadium.
The UAB Blazers football team represents the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in the sport of American football. The Blazers compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and American Athletic Conference. The team is led by head coach Trent Dilfer, who was named the program’s 7th head coach on November 30, 2022. Home games were previously held at Legion Field in Birmingham from the 1991 season to the 2020 season. A new stadium, Protective Stadium, has been the home of the Blazers starting from the 2021 season. The new stadium's capacity is over 47,000.
The UAB Blazers are the varsity intercollegiate athletic programs that represent the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The school is one of the fourteen member institutions of the American Athletic Conference and participates in Division I of the NCAA. The school's men's basketball team plays in 8,508-seat Bartow Arena. The Blazers' colors are green and gold. The men's basketball program has a long history of success spanning several decades.
Gardendale High School (GHS) is a public high school located in the Birmingham, Alabama suburb of Gardendale. It is currently operated by the Jefferson County Board of Education. GHS was established in 1956 as a result of population growth in the area. Until this time, local students mostly attended Mortimer Jordan High School in nearby Morris.
Shell Energy Stadium is an American multi-purpose stadium located in Houston, Texas that is home to Houston Dynamo FC, a Major League Soccer club and the Houston Dash of the National Women's Soccer League and was the first soccer specific stadium built in a major metropolitan downtown city. The stadium is the result of combined commitments of $35.5 million from the city of Houston and $60 million from the Houston Dynamo Football Club. Harris County agreed to pay for half of the land in exchange for the ability to jointly own the stadium after its completion date in May 2012. The naming rights to the stadium were formerly held by BBVA USA; the name was changed to that of PNC Financial Services due to BBVA's acquisition by PNC. The stadium's naming rights have been owned by Shell Energy since January 17, 2023.
West Campus Field was a soccer-specific stadium located in Birmingham, Alabama, United States on the campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) that served as the home field for both the UAB Blazers men's and women's soccer teams. The 1,500-seat stadium, with an overall capacity of 2,500, was built in 1993. The largest men's soccer regular season crowd to ever see a game at the facility was 3,141 on August 27, 2011, to see the Blazers defeat the Clemson Tigers in their 2011 home opener.
The UAB Blazers men's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As of the upcoming 2022 season, the college soccer program competes in the NCAA Division I American Athletic Conference.
The Houston Dash is a professional women's soccer team based in Houston, Texas and joined the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in the 2014 season. The Dash play all home matches at Shell Energy Stadium.
Sports in Birmingham, Alabama, include several minor league professional teams and college sports. The City of Birmingham and the Birmingham metro area have no major professional sport franchises. The Birmingham area is home to the Birmingham Barons, the AA minor league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, which plays at Regions Field in the Southside adjacent to Railroad Park. The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Samford University in Homewood have popular collegiate sports teams, including college basketball and football. The Hoover Metropolitan Stadium is home to the Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament, which drew more than 108,000 spectators in 2006 and continues to draw large crowds today. The city also hosts a USL team: the Birmingham Legion FC. The Birmingham area also hosts the Alabama Youth Sports Alliance basketball league and Tragic City Rollers women's roller derby team.
Birmingham Legion FC is an American professional soccer club based in Birmingham, Alabama, that competes in the USL Championship, the second division of American soccer. The team was established in August 2013 and played under the name Birmingham Hammers until 2018 and began their first professional season as Legion FC on March 10, 2019. As of March 5th 2023 Spanish filmmaker Enrique Cerezo has maintained a 15% ownership share in the club.
The 2019 Birmingham Legion FC season was the club's inaugural season and their first in the USL Championship, the second tier of American soccer. The season covers the period from the founding of the club to the start of the 2020 USL Championship season.
Mathieu Simon Laurent is a Canadian soccer player who plays as a defender for Vaughan Azzurri in League1 Ontario.
Protective Stadium is a football stadium owned and operated by the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Authority in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. Since its opening in 2021, the stadium has been named for Protective Life, a financial service holding company based in Birmingham, which pays $1 million per year as part of a 15-year naming rights deal. It is the host site of the annual Birmingham Bowl and serves as the home stadium of the UAB Blazers football team. The stadium has also served as the home for the city's professional soccer and football team.
