Published On: 03.15.16 | 

By: Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Alabama sports impresario Art Clarkson is back in Birmingham

Feature – Art marvels at Rickwood mural in Regions Field meeting room

Art Clarkson, the former owner of the Birmingham Barons and Birmingham Bulls, is back in the Magic City. Clarkson marvels at a Rickwood Field mural in a meeting room at Regions Field. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr./Alabama NewsCenter)

Art Clarkson remembers then-Birmingham News reporter Wayne Martin predicting that Clarkson wouldn’t stay in Birmingham long.

“’You’re going to have a couple of big years here and you’re going to move on to somewhere else,’” Clarkson said, recalling the 1980 conversation. “I said, ‘No, I’m gonna stay here.’”

Decades have passed since that declaration and after about 20 years in Birmingham, Clarkson moved on to other locales. But the man who brought professional baseball back to Birmingham before taking it to the Hoover Met has made his way back to the Magic City.

As he puts it, he grew up in Los Angeles, but Birmingham is home.

“It’s that simple,” he said recently at his Inverness apartment. “This is home for me. My friends are here. My family’s here. I could have moved back to L.A. but it’s not home any more. My home is Birmingham, Alabama.”

Clarkson made a recognizable name for himself in the Birmingham sports scene. There were his 10 years as an owner and general manager of the Birmingham Barons and six years with the Birmingham Bulls. He had six years in Huntsville with the Tennessee Valley Vipers af2 indoor football team.

In between, he did consulting for clients that included the University of Alabama at Birmingham. All the while, he says he saw himself as an ambassador for Birmingham.

“It was part of my mantra,” he said. “It went hand in hand. When I had the Barons and when I had the Bulls, I said this was a good professional sports town. It added to the quality of life.”

While the former owner of the Barons and Bulls didn’t come back to a job, he’s willing to roll up his sleeves again, providing more than two decades of sports marketing experience.

“I think my days of being the Pied Piper or the leader of the band are over,” he said. “I’d just like to be a consultant to somebody. There’s a lot of programs out there I think I could really help. There are things I’m looking at.”

Clarkson said he’s 74 years old but doesn’t feel like he’s 74. He still has energy, he says.

“I don’t have enough energy where I want to start up another organization,” he said. “I’d like to assist some.”

Clarkson left Alabama in 2005 to become the chief operating officer of Mississippi Surge Hockey in Biloxi for two years and then headed to Wisconsin to be the chief operating officer of the Green Bay Blizzard of the Indoor Football League.

The sports entrepreneur considered a return to Birmingham in 2014 but became CEO and co-owner of the Colorado Crush (formerly the Colorado Ice) Indoor Football franchise.

“I think the Lord gave me a gift,” he said. “I may not be the greatest golfer or the greatest this or the greatest that. But I’m really good at putting people in buildings for sporting events. I really am.”

Art Clarkson talks about some of his most memorable Birmingham sports promotions from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.