General race motion throughout the Irwin Tools Night Race on the Bristol Motor Speedway.
David J. Griffin | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
Baseball fans, start your engines.
Major League Baseball announced Friday that NASCAR’s iconic Bristol Motor Speedway will host a regular-season MLB game for the primary time next yr.
The sport is ready for Aug. 2, 2025, between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds. It should even be the primary in-season MLB game to be held in Tennessee.
“We stay up for celebrating our game with a big selection of fans, each on and off the sector throughout the weekend, and highlighting the wealthy traditions of sports, music and community in Tennessee and across the region,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in an announcement.
The Bristol Motor Speedway is certainly one of the biggest sporting venues in America with a seating capability of near 150,000.
The sport next August is more likely to break the single-game attendance record for a Major League Baseball game. In 2008, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosted an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox in front of a crowd of 115,300, setting a Guinness World Record for the biggest attendance ever at a baseball game. Compared, the typical MLB ballpark can seat between 40,000 to 45,000 fans.
This announcement comes as Major League Baseball makes a renewed to expand the sport to recent venues and fans across the USA and globally. The MLB has hosted games in lots of nontraditional ballparks, including in 2016 when a game was held on an lively military base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, or in 2021 when the Chicago White Sox played the Latest York Yankees on the long-lasting “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Iowa. And as recently as June, the league hosted the “MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” in Birmingham, Alabama, two days after the death of Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
The MLB has also outlined a schedule of ambitious international games, including playing in cities akin to Tokyo, Mexico City, Paris, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, all within the 2025 season.
March 15, 2014: Racing motion throughout the Drive To Stop Diabetes 300. Kyle Busch (54) Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) Monster Energy Drink Toyota Camry won the Drive To Stop Diabetes 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee.
Jeffrey Vest | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
Meanwhile, the Bristol Motor Speedway isn’t any stranger to high-profile non-NASCAR events. The track hosted an NFL exhibition game in 1961. In 2016, Tennessee and Virginia Tech played within the “Battle at Bristol” on a purpose-built field within the infield that drew 156,990 fans, the biggest crowd ever to look at an NCAA football game.
Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley told The Athletic, which was the primary to report this news Tuesday, “You see all these things, teams traveling (abroad), change it up a bit bit. I believe it’ll be form of cool and unique. It’ll be a fun experience.”
