Take me out to the ballgame Bristol Motor Speedway.
The famous racetrack would normally stick to what it knows best: racing. However, every once in a while, a unique opportunity presents itself to the venue, and the stadium trades out its race cars for another form of entertainment.
This time around, the Bristol, Tennessee racetrack will transform into a baseball diamond for the MLB’s Speedway Classic. The Athletic first reported late last year that the 150,000 seat stadium will be the host of a neutral site game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Atlanta Braves in 2025.
The two national league teams will have similar travel times to the racetrack that’s almost smack dab in the middle of their homes. For Atlanta, they’ll have to travel around four hours from their usual place of play, and for Cincinnati, they’ll face a five hour drive to get to Bristol.
With the two teams matching up at a neutral site, it should give fans a chance to “meet in the middle” and go see their favorite team there instead of driving all the way to one place or the other. At the very least, baseball fans will be treated to a classic game of baseball in a stadium that’s much different than what a regular ball park looks like.
And it’s not the first time that the speedway was converted to fulfill another purpose. Back in 2016, Virginia Tech and Tennessee played a game there, and set the record for highest attended NCAA football game with 156,990 fans in attendance.
The regular season game is set to be played at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 2nd of 2025, and if all goes according to plan, it will be the first ever in-season Major League Baseball game played in the state of Tennessee. That’s somewhat hard to believe, right? But I guess it makes sense… no MLB calls the state of Tennessee home (could Nashville soon change that?).
And now, we’re getting to see how the MLB game at Bristol Motor Speedway will look with new renderings released from Front Office Sports. With the news that Major League Baseball is adding a Tim McGraw pre-game concert to the already special night, they felt as though it would be helpful to show fans how everything will fit inside of Bristol Motor Speedway.
There’s plenty of space to make a baseball game and a concert work… but the more interesting question has been, “How will it all be laid out?”
As you can see, it appears that a portion of the stadium seating will be closed off – just because of how a baseball diamond fits, and so no fans pay for and experience horrible seats. That being said, the altered venue is still expected to be able to seat over 100,000 fans, which would easily break the MLB’s regular season attendance record (set back in 1954 when 86,563 people watched the Yankees play the Indians at Municipal Stadium).
As an Atlanta Braves fan myself, I’m certainly excited to tune in (or possibly go) to the clash with the Cincinnati Reds. And if anyone out there just so happens to love both baseball and racing, this sports mash-up is a dream come true.
The renderings certainly look like they are something out of a dream:
