Baseball fans, start your engines.
Major League Baseball announced Friday that NASCAR's legendary Bristol Motor Speedway will host an MLB regular-season game for the primary time next 12 months.
The game between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds is scheduled for August 2, 2025. It may even be the primary MLB game of the season to be played in Tennessee.
“We look forward to celebrating our game with a large number of fans on and off the field all weekend long and highlighting the rich traditions of sports, music and community in Tennessee and the entire region,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in an announcement.
With nearly 150,000 seats, Bristol Motor Speedway is one in all the biggest sporting venues in America.
The game next August will likely break the attendance record for a Major League Baseball game. In 2008, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosted a Exhibition fight between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox in front of 115,300 spectators, which is a Guinness World Record for the best attendance at a baseball game of all time. For comparison: An average MLB baseball stadium has space for 40,000 to 45,000 fans.
This announcement comes amid renewed efforts by Major League Baseball to expand the sport to latest venues and fans across the United States and around the globe. MLB has hosted games in lots of non-traditional stadiums, including in 2016 when a game was played at an lively military base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, or in 2021, when the Chicago White Sox played against the New York Yankees on the legendary “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Iowa. And just in June, the league hosted “MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” in Birmingham, Alabama, two days after death by Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
MLB has also created a schedule of high-profile international games, including matches in cities corresponding to Tokyo, Mexico City, Paris and San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the 2025 season.
Bristol Motor Speedway isn’t any stranger to high-profile non-NASCAR events. The track hosted an NFL preseason game in 1961. In 2016, Tennessee and Virginia Tech played within the “Battle at Bristol” on a specially constructed field within the infield. which attracted 156,990 fansthe biggest crowd ever to see an NCAA football game.
Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley told The Athletic: which was the primary to report this news on Tuesday“You see all this, teams travel (abroad), change it up a little bit. I think it's going to be pretty cool and unique. It's going to be a fun experience.”
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