Executives from all of the constituents who are coming together during the next month to build the baseball field inside Bristol Motor Speedway for the historic MLB Speedway Classic met with the media today to outline the process and show off some of the progress.
For the next 30-plus days construction will be ongoing to prepare the field for the historic game, when the Atlanta Braves play the Cincinnati Reds inside The Last Great Colosseum on Saturday night, August 2nd. (7 p.m., FOX).
The game is the first MLB National or American League game to be played in the state of Tennessee and also the first that will be played inside a motorsports facility.
Construction has been ongoing for a few weeks and in addition to some necessary demolition of walls and light poles by BMS initially, most of the gravel base for the field has been put down. Crews are now focusing on building the walls, grandstands, dugouts, press box and other necessary structures around the diamond. Crews also will be tasked with building the stage for the pregame concert that includes Tim McGraw, Pitbull and Jake Owen, who was added to the lineup in an announcement today from MLB.
“This has been years in the making, and years’ worth of conversations,” said Jerry Caldwell, president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway. “It’s exciting to see it all come together. It's kind of like planning for Christmas Day, and we're starting to make the food now, and Christmas day is approaching, so we're thrilled to be able to welcome folks and start to show this off. I think people will be really surprised when they come back in a couple of weeks when the turf is down and the place really starts to look even more different.”
MLB vice president of global events, Jeremiah Yolkut, was energized taking in all of the activity going on around the Speedway today. MLB also announced today that there will be an interactive Fan Zone, with more music acts, which will give fans an amazing area to explore prior to the pregame concert and game.
“I think it's great to see movement on the site,” Yolkut said. “It's great to see the gravel put down. It's great to see some of the different configurations. This is all exciting.”
Without giving out any attendance numbers, Yolkut told the media he expects this game to be filled to the brim with fans, quite literally.
“It's going to be the largest regular season game of the 2025, season,” Yolkut said. “So that'll be something that Tennessee can take pride in this year, because it will be the most attended game in our regular season. It's really hard to predict how many (fans) exactly. We think that it will be a big crowd, big spectacle. Tickets are continuing to fly off the shelves. We don't have as many left as when we started, so we're excited.”
Yolkut said its important to MLB to have lots of entertainment for the thousands of fans around this game.
“We wanted to make sure that once we had the baseball game set, we could build a field here, and we could overlay this unique concept,” Yokult said. “And we don't do this really anywhere else. We're going to play a concert exactly right before the actual game starts in the same venue, not on the baseball field itself. It's something you can't do at most major league ballparks, because you have to get ready for the game. But here we can have a large stage concert before the game. Then as we announced earlier today, you're going to have these other acts that will be outside, within the Fan Zone, so fans will really have seven to eight hours of programming at the venue in addition to the baseball game. That'll just give them this amazing experience.”
For Caldwell, he said everything that will be a part of game day just fits in perfectly with Bristol Motor Speedway’s playbook.
“When you look at the history of this place, the home to the Appalachian League, the history of baseball in this region, the history of NASCAR within this region, music is deep in our DNA and in our roots, being able to bring all those things together is really what it's all about,” Caldwell said. “I think that's why people will love this event, and not only create history from numbers and an attendance standpoint, but just from the magnitude and the experience.”
To purchase tickets please visit the MLB Speedway Classic website.
