The popular red cabooses that have hosted tailgaters for 20 years at the University of Louisville's Cardinal Stadium may be going the way of coach Bobby Petrino.

Well-heeled boosters have rented the 14 railroad cars for partying before and after Cardinals football games. But now the U of L Athletic Association has notified the company that leases them out that its own lease will be terminated.

U of L wants the cabooses, or the space, for itself.

"I am very hurt," said Maury Buchart, an owner of the company, Caboose Express, which spent $1 million in 1999 to buy the cabooses and to build a rail spur to deliver them to their home west of the stadium.

'He can never know':Kentucky bourbon distillery owner charged in college cheating scam

Don Cox, who represents the company, said U of L is being a bully and just wants to make more money from the leases.

"Why would you take your best and earlier supporters and tell them 'adios'?" he asked.

And businessman Ken Crutcher, who has leased a caboose with 10 associates since 1999, said, "Our group is shocked" the university would "mess with something as successful as this."

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Jefferson Circuit Court, the company asks for a court order restraining the athletic association from terminating its lease and for damages “in a substantial amount.”

In an interview, U of L athletic director Vince Tyra said he doesn’t know if the cabooses will leave or stay.

He said the university may buy them and lease them directly, sell them to a third party to lease or get rid of them to allow more space for parking.

"We are not looking to disrupt or disappoint our donors," he said.

But he said that the land on which they sit has grown more valuable, and that U of L should be getting more money out of the deal.

"They have a good thing going and I can understand they don’t want to lose out," he said of Caboose Express’ owners. "But the economics are on the back of U of L athletics."

According to a USA TODAY Sports database published last June, U of L athletics had a $3.4 million deficit in 2017, the last year figures were available.

Read this:Louisville athletics receives $5 million UPS donation

Caboose Express pays about $19,000 a year to lease the cars, which are on state land, and in turn rents them out each for about $15,000 per year — or about $210,000 annually. It also provides one caboose to U of L for free, according to contracts attached to the suit.

But Cox said the deal is not as sweet as it appears, because the company spent so much on capital investment. Buchart said it took eight years to repay the loan on the investment.

The boosters who rent the cabooses have invested up to $100,000 apiece to decorate them, and some include full kitchens, mahogany cabinets, marble-walled bathrooms and sofa beds.

Businessman Sam Rechter, who picked out the first caboose and renovated it, said he’d heard nothing about their endangered status, even though he sits on ULAA’s board.

“I like our caboose and I hope it stays there,” he said.

Crutcher, president of Kenway Distributors, said the cabooses are often featured in EPSN telecasts and are a huge benefit to tailgating.

“I will be disappointed if they get rid of it and I don’t know why the university wants to operate it,” he said.

Cox said the lessees include some of U of L’s biggest supporters; each one is required to buy four season tickets.

More headlines:Here's what's next for Louisville's suspended capital projects

A contract extension in 2014 said Caboose Express’ lease terminated June 30, 2019, but it said the company “shall have the option to renew it … for up to two successive five-year terms.”

In a termination notice, however, the athletic association cited a state law it said allowed it as a “licensor of state-owned property” to terminate any lease on 30-day notice.

In the suit, Cox asserts that the statute has “absolutely no application” to the U of L athletics association or the university.

The law is in a section on Kentucky Revised Statutes that covers property leased by the state, not property leased to other entities.

The suit claims the athletic association said it was terminating the lease “because it needed the parking places,” when “the real reason U of L wants to take over the cabooses is to profit from their rentals.”

See also:Burned by Rick Pitino, U of L takes new approach with Chris Mack's contract

Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/andreww.