Birmingham Barracudas

Canadian Football League (1995)

Background

The Birmingham Barracudas were the final American expansion team awarded during the Canadian Football League’s failed incursion into the United States during the mid-1990’s.

The CFL arrived in America in 1993 with a single club in Sacramento, California. Expansion teams in Baltimore, Las Vegas and Shreveport, Louisiana followed a year later. For 1995, Sacramento moved to San Antonio, Las Vegas folded, and Birmingham and Memphis became the last American cities to join the CFL. Life insurance mogul Art Williams purchased the Birmingham expansion rights in January 1995. Oddly, he chose the nickname “Barracudas” for his landlocked Alabama franchise.

The Barracudas tabbed former Houston Oilers head coach Jack Pardee to run the team. Pardee was a pioneer of the Run and Shoot offense during his time with the Houston Gamblers of the USFL and later with the University of Houston and the Oilers. Two-time All-CFL quarterback Matt Dunigan signed as a free agent and led the ‘Cudas high-scoring offense.

Attendance Woes

The Barracudas debuted at 75,000-seat Legion Field on July 15, 1995 with a 51-28 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The opening day crowd of 31,185 marked a strong debut by CFL standards. Crowds stayed strong for the next two Saturday nights as well. 25,321 turned out for a 24-14 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders on July 22nd and 30,729 for a 36-8 loss to the Baltimore Stallions on July 29th.

The Barracudas were high-scoring and competitive. But attendance crashed in September and October once high school football and the  Auburn and University of Alabama college schedules got under way. Barracudas executives anticipated the problem. The CFL traditionally played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Williams got an exception for the Barracudas. Birmingham would play home games at Legion Field on Saturday evenings in July and August, but would be allowed to play on Sundays once college and high school football got under way after Labor Day. It didn’t matter. On Sunday October 1, 1995 an announced crowd of just 6,317 showed up for a home win against the Shreveport Pirates. The following Sunday was no better – 6,859 for a divisional contest against the San Antonio Texans. For all intents and purposes, the Barracudas were done in Birmingham.

The End

The Barracudas made the Grey Cup playoffs with a 10-8 record. But Matt Dunigan broke the index finger on this throwing hand in the season’s penultimate game. He would miss the Barracudas’ November 5, 1995 playoff game against the San Antonio Texans. Kelvin Simmons, with one pro start to his name, couldn’t move the offense. The Texans blew out the Barracudas 52-9 in the Alamodome. It was last game the team would ever play.

In January 1996 Art Williams reached an agreement in principle to unload his CFL membership to a group from Louisiana for a reported $750,000. The group hoped to move the Barracudas to Shreveport to replace that city’s own outgoing CFL team, the Pirates. But the Louisiana group was unable to complete the deal by the CFL’s January 31, 1996 deadline. CFL owners voted to disband what remained of the CFL’s American franchises in February 1996.

Trivia

Art Williams purchased the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning in 1998. He lost a reported $20 million on the team in 9 months before selling it at a further loss, thus bringing his pro sports adventures to an end.

Barracudas quarterback Matt Dunigan earned election to the Canadian Football Hall-of-Fame in 1996.

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The Era of American Expansion in the CFL

By Ed Willes

 

End Zones and Border Wars is the story of the Canadian Football League’s ill-fated period
of expansion into the United States during the early to mid-
1990s. It was a time filled with intriguing characters, from John
Candy to Nick Mileti to Pepper Rodgers, the coach who loved everything
about the Canadian game except the rules and the teams. With
a cast of investors who are hopeful but unfamiliar with the game,
bizarre stories emerge, from the Las Vegas Posse practising in the
parking lot of the Riviera to the Shreveport Pirates camping out
above a barn full of circus animals.

 

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Birmingham Barracudas Logo T from Old School Shirts

Birmingham Barracudas Video

The Barracudas suffer a 52-9 blowout playoff loss in the franchise’s final game on the road in San Antonio. November 5, 1995.

Links

Canadian Football League Media Guides

Canadian Football League Programs

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