Legion Field is a large stadium in Birmingham, Alabama primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but is occasionally used for other large outdoor events. The stadium is named in honor of the American Legion, a U.S. organization of military veterans. At its peak it seated approximately 81,000 people for football. Today, after the removal of the upper deck, Legion Field seats approximately 71,594 spectators.

	Capacity		71,594
	Opened		1926
	Owner		City of Birmingham
	Operator		UAB
	Surface		Artificial Turf
	Location		400 Graymont Ave W Birmingham, AL 35204
	Construction cost		$439,000 USD

Until the 1990s the University of Alabama played up to three home football games a year at Legion Field, a practice that has now ended. Auburn University has used the stadium similarly for a while, but not as extensively, for it had played some of its home games in Columbus, Georgia at one point and had enlarged its home field, Jordan-Hare Stadium, to a seating capacity roughly equal to that of Legion Field well before the University of Alabama had done so with its facility, Bryant-Denny Stadium. It currently serves as the home field for the UAB Blazers, who compete in Conference USA.

Legion Field perhaps was best-known for hosting the annual, season-ending game between Alabama and Auburn every year from 1948 to 1988. Because of Birmingham’s major industry of iron and steel manufacturing, the game became known as the Iron Bowl. In 1989 Auburn moved their “home” games in the series to their own stadium. Alabama followed suit in 2001. In the summer of 1996, Legion Field served as a soccer venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Legion Field also hosted three post-season college football games, the Dixie Bowl (1947-1948), the Hall of Fame Classic (1977-1985) and the All-American Bowl (1986-1990). In addition, it was the site of the first two SEC football championship games. It still hosts the title football game for the historically black Southwestern Athletic Conference (’SWAC’).

The venue also served as home field for the Birmingham Americans (Vulcans) of the World Football League (1974-1975), the Birmingham Stallions of the United States Football League (1983-1985), and the Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football (now NFL Europe) in 1991-92. Afterward in 1995, it was the home field of the Birmingham Barracudas for their single season of play as part of the short-lived expansion of the Canadian Football League into the U.S. Later (2001), it was the home field for the single season of the Birmingham Thunderbolts of the XFL. On August 19, 2004, the University of Alabama announced that they would not be playing any further home games at the venue, leaving UAB football as the sole collegiate tenant.

Recently, Legion Field had been used successfully as a site for major soccer events, including matchups in the 1996 Olympic Games — the opening match between the United States and Argentina drew 83,810 spectators, the stadium’s all-time record for any event. Legion Field had also hosted exhibition games by the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams, and in 2005 it hosted a World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Guatemala. US Soccer will no longer be scheduling games for play at Legion Field because of a switch from natural grass to artificial turf.

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