America’s two most beloved competitive passions are about to collide, baseball and stock car racing. Don’t worry, NASCAR isn’t running a race in the middle of a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Major League Baseball announced on Friday that Bristol Motor Speedway will host the MLB Speedway Classic, a regular-season game between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds in 2025.
The high-banked half-mile short track in Eastern Tennessee first hosted the NASCAR Cup Series in 1961 and remains a schedule staple. A typical race weekend sees team haulers shuffled into the infield door-to-door like a game of Tetris. Next year’s August 5 matchup will see the infield transformed into a ballpark with the speedway’s suspended jumbotron dangling outside of the left field foul line over a grandstand.
Living up to the venue’s nickname, “The Last Great Coliseum,” MLB’s goal is likely to fill as many of Bristol’s 146,000 seats as possible. However, the event’s renderings show a pretty dull field configuration despite baseball’s rules allowing for extremely quirky dimensions. I want to see the outfielders contending with the 24-degree banking to catch fly balls. I want to see the catch fence as part of the outfield wall.
Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball and contender for most-hated man in sports, said in statement:
“Major League Baseball is excited to deliver a special game at Bristol Motor Speedway, a unique setting that sports fans will remember forever. 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.”
Professional sports leagues are always looking for a new spectacle, but there has been an uptick in recent years. NASCAR moved the Busch Clash to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For its part, MLB plays a two-game regular-season series in London.
The inspiration for the Speedway Classic was the Battle at Bristol, a college football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech. The 2016 event shattered records with 156,990 fans in attendance. The game’s success was attributed to the race track being a natural neutral site near the Tennessee-Virginia state line, the South’s love for college football and the season is only 12 games longer. Only time will tell if the baseball fans will flock to the speedway next year.
