The Magic City Classic football might face budget cuts by Alabama lawmakers, which has raised concern from Alabama Senator Rodger Smitherman. The Magic City Classic is an annual football game between longtime rivals Alabama State University and Alabama A&M University in Birmingham, Alabama.
According to WBRC-TV, Birmingham city officials predicted that the game and accompanying celebrations would boost the city’s economy by more than $20 million in 2024. Furthermore, the game, which took place on October 26, was the Magic City’s tenth busiest day of the year.
The state allocated $200,000 for the Magic City Classic for next year as part of its anticipated $3.7 billion budget. However, the yearly classic’s funding was eliminated when the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee adopted the General Fund budget. The proposed move to eliminate events like the Magic City Classic is part of Alabama’s initiative to prioritize “budgeting” and “get back to funding state agencies,” according to Rep. Rex Reynolds, who is also one of the leaders of the state’s House Ways and Means General Fund Committee.
“As you saw when [Gov. Kay Ivey’s] budget came over, all of the one-time appropriations were removed from the budget,” Reynolds said, per AL.com.
To debate the proposed budget, Smitherman, Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, and Sen. Greg Albritton, the state’s additional General Fund chairman, met with Reynolds. During his appearance on the Senate floor, Smitherman stated that the Magic City Classic issue would be examined along with other issues.
In an interview with AL.com, Singleton mentioned that there would be changes to the budget but wasn’t specific on when they would take place.
As one of the most popular HBCU football games of the year, the widely popular HBCU classic drew close to 70,000 attendees in 2024, according to the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau Board. Smitherman described the yearly event as a component of the state’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and its overall impact would be diminished if financing for Magic City Classic were to be discontinued.
In order to highlight the significance of this event and suggested budget cuts to other relevant issues, Smitherman stated he would use the Senate’s filibuster rules.
This announcement surrounding budget cuts for the Magic City Classic comes just one month after Amazon announced that it was the title sponsor for the football game. The official name of the game will be “Amazon Magic City Classic, presented by Coca-Cola” starting this year.
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