While teased earlier in the week, the news was made official this week that the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will play a regular season game at famed NASCAR short track Bristol Motor Speedway on August 2 in an event called the Speedway Classic.
“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.”
Bristol Tennessee, located on the border with Virginia, is centrally located for both fan-bases to be able to attend with equal travel.
This will also be the first regular-season game in either National League or American League history to be played in the state of Tennessee and continues the trend from Manfred to play games in non-traditional and memorable settings.
That dynamic has seen games played at Fort Bragg in 2016, MLB in Omaha in 2019, MLB at Field of Dreams in 2021, MLB at Rickwood Field earlier this year, and the annual Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pa. Those games were, respectively, the first regular-season AL/NL games in North Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa and Alabama.
Bristol Motor Speedway has a seating capacity of nearly 150,000 and is the site of two races at the highest level of American Stock Car racing. But the facility also recently played host to a NCAA college football contest between the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
That event drew a crowd of 156,990, a record for the highest attended game in NCAA football history.
The Redskins and Eagles played at the track back in 1961 as well.
Here is what the game is expected to look like next summer.
As a point of reference, this is Bristol in its natural setting.
