Major League Baseball announced Friday that the league will host a 2025 regular season game at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. The game, which will feature the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds is scheduled for August 2nd next year.
“Major League Baseball is excited to deliver a special game at Bristol Motor Speedway, a unique setting that sports fans will remember forever,” said Commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement. “The Reds and the Braves form an ideal matchup because of their dynamic talent and the proximity of their markets. We look forward to celebrating our game with a wide array of fans, both on and off the field throughout the weekend, and highlighting the rich traditions of sports, music and community in Tennessee and across the region.”
The game will mark the first regular season game of the NL/AL era to be hosted in the state, and follows the pattern established by the league in recent years to play in unconventional settings. Previously MLB has hosted games at Fort Bragg (2016), Omaha (2019), the “Field of Dreams” game (2021) and Rickwood Field earlier this season.
As seen in the initial renderings, the baseball diamond will be erected on the infield of the track, and will count officially as a Reds “home game”. The stadium has a capacity of 146,000 which opens the possibility of setting some attendance figure records as well.
The previous record, which currently stands as a Guinness World Record for largest attendance at a baseball game is 115,300 set back in 2008. That game featured an exhibition match between the Dodgers and Red Sox at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“On behalf of the team at Bristol Motor Speedway and Speedway Motorsports, we are thrilled to partner with Major League Baseball to bring the Speedway Classic to the ‘Home of Big Events’ on Aug. 2, 2025,” said Jerry Caldwell, president of Bristol Motor Speedway. “There is deep baseball history in Bristol and around this area, long acknowledged as the heart of the Appalachian League. In addition, Bristol’s location makes it the perfect ‘meet in the middle’ destination for a showdown between these two beloved clubs. It’s only appropriate for the World’s Fastest Half-Mile to showcase this game where the talented athletes will be on display in a venue that’s reputation was built on speed and high performance.”
The venue has featured several memorable non-racing moments over the years. Back in 2016, Tennessee played host to Virginia Tech for a college football game which drew a then record of 156,990 fans to Thunder Valley.
Tickets are expected to go on sale for the event in December.
Photo: Raniel Diaz. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.