Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, called by some “The Oven” or “The Pizza Palace,” is a football stadium located in Louisville, Kentucky, USA and serves as the home of the football team of the Louisville Cardinals.

	Capacity		42,000
	Opened		1998
	Owner		University of Louisville
	Operator		University of Louisville
	Surface		FieldTurf
	Location		2800 South Floyd Street Louisville, KY 40292
	Construction cost		$63 million USD

It opened in 1998, making it the second newest on-campus football stadium in NCAA Division I-A behind SMU’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium. The official seating capacity in the horseshoe-shaped facility is 42,000. The stadium cost $63 million to build with Papa John’s Pizza’s John Schnatter donating $5 million for the naming rights to the stadium. The stadium was entirely funded from private donations, as the Kentucky General Assembly refused to provide any state funding for its construction.

A unique aspect of the facility, at least in an American context, is that there are no bleachers—every seat is a chairback seat. This particular feature is fairly common elsewhere in the world, especially in Europe, but is very rare in North American stadiums, especially those used for college football.

At the north end of the stadium is the Howard Schnellenberger Football Complex, which houses the football offices and the conditioning center for the football team. Also at the north end is a bronze statue of Johnny Unitas, the most famous football alumnus of the university. As part of game day tradition, each Cardinal player touches the base of the statue before entering the field prior to kickoff.

The stadium has also hosted soccer matches, including fixtures for the US women’s national team; concerts; auto shows; the Ray Adams Charger Classic, a local high school football event; other high school football games, notably the local rivalry game between St. Xavier and Trinity; the Kentucky High School Football State Championships; and the evangelist Billy Graham; as well as the annual DCI Louisville drum & bugle corps competition.

It also the annual site of the Kentucky state high school football championship games and the Kentucky / Tennessee High School Football All-Star Game (on a bi-yearly basis).

Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium is not to be confused with Cardinal Stadium (formerly Fairgrounds Stadium), the previous home of the Cardinals’ football and baseball teams, located on the grounds of the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center.

An interesting feature is the Brown and Williamson Club located at the rear of the stadium’s press box. It contains several large ball rooms and is rented out for receptions to bring in additional revenue. It is also often used by the school to host prominent visiting speakers. The venue overlooks the school’s new Jim Patterson Baseball Stadium and Jewish Hospital Sports Medicine complex, which was completed in 2005.

For the 2006 football season, new state-of-the-art high definition scoreboard will be installed in the north endzone. It will be three-times as large as the previous scoreboard and will have the phrase “The Ville” emblazoned atop it. A new red LED scoreboard has also been installed in the south end zone, as well as a lighted “University of Louisville” sign around the upper rim of the exterior of the east stands, which will increase the stadium’s visibility from Interstate 65.

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