{"id":38358,"date":"2025-08-01T21:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T21:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/38358\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T21:01:08","slug":"bristol-hosts-braves-reds-could-nhl-be-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/38358\/","title":{"rendered":"Bristol Hosts Braves, Reds. Could NHL be Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBristol Motor Speedway is on track to break MLB<\/a>\u2019s regular season single-game attendance record on Saturday, with more than 85,000 tickets sold to the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds\u2019 Speedway Classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe clash represents baseball\u2019s latest attempt to create regular-season buzz with unique locations, following games within an Iowa cornfield and at Alabama\u2019s historic Rickwood Field. For Bristol, Saturday brings additional proof that a speedway can host more than racing. The track previously set a college football attendance record as 157,000 people showed up to watch Tennessee take on Virginia Tech in 2016.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther sports executives, including from the NHL, will be on site this weekend, ready to receive Bristol\u2019s pitch. League leaders regularly attend their peer organizations\u2019 marquee events, especially today as pros scour the country for new potential host sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe believe we will continue to show that Bristol Motor Speedway is a facility for lots of different types of events,\u201d BMS president Jerry Caldwell said in an interview. \u201cYou can go down the list of the natural next\u2014after football and baseball, then you\u2019ve got hockey and soccer that both make sense. If you want a facility that has a big open space that you can put a playing surface down \u2026 and then want to be able to host some of the largest crowds in the country, then Bristol is going to be the place to at least explore for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the gridiron contest, the venue hoisted a center-hung video screen known as \u201cColossus,\u201d replacing a pole-mounted board. But more work was needed to set up \u201cThe Last Great Colosseum\u201d\u2014which boasts a capacity near 150,000 for a NASCAR<\/a> race\u2014for America\u2019s pastime.<\/p>\n

\n\tMLB executives first officially visited the track in 2021. The initial challenge was figuring out how to orient a diamond within Bristol\u2019s half-mile oval.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou really had to sort of put your imaginary thinking cap on,\u201d MLB SVP of global events Jeremiah Yolkut said. \u201cYou have to imagine grass, and you have to imagine all the different elements that don\u2019t normally exist at a racetrack. But we noticed right away that the folks at Bristol Motor Speedway were very open about how we could utilize the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe solution would leave the 700-ton \u201cColossus\u201d hanging 155 feet up, just outside the third base foul line. Part of a building was deconstructed as the same brand of artificial turf used by the Toronto Blue Jays was brought in and rolled out. Gas tanks and pieces of the pit walls were taken down, too. Nearly 18,000 tons of gravel was used to level the surface, with 340 tons of clay coming from Pennsylvania to sculpt the infield, mounds and bullpens.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs it constructs each new venue, MLB has gotten more efficient at creating majors-level parks in temporary locations. Baseball has also planned a sprawling fan zone and a pregame concert featuring Tim McGraw and Pitbull, thanks to the extra space Bristol provides that will allow players to continue their game prep during the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFox plans to translate the unique perspectives for fans at home, using helicopter and drone shots, a remote-controlled car, and plenty of checkerboard motifs. The broadcast will also emphasize the theme of speed, with baseball games zooming by 30 minutes faster than they did five years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do things that match up with what we normally do in auto racing [coverage],\u201d said Brad Cheney, Fox VP, field operations and engineering. \u201cIt\u2019s really kind of a goal of ours to match the venue as much as humanly possible.\u201d If a Braves or Reds fan tunes into the game, somehow unaware of where it\u2019s being played, Cheney said the unique venue will become clear \u201cwithin a heartbeat.\u201d Speedway Classic coverage begins at 6 p.m. ET Saturday on Fox.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rickwood game drew 2.3 million average viewers last summer, while the second Field of Dreams game in 2022 brought in 3.1 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNASCAR will return to Bristol (after the necessary walls have been reinstalled) in September, but it might not be long before the speedway hosts its next unique sports event. Executives expect more than 50% of this weekend\u2019s attendees will be making their first trip to the venue. Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith, whose company operates Bristol and 10 other NASCAR race locations, has even discussed putting a roof over the megastructure to make it more appealing year-round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe could do WrestleMania,\u201d he said in July. \u201dYou could have, who knows what, the biggest UFC fight in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAmerica\u2019s largest bowl is ready to play ball. And other games too, it turns out.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol Motor Speedway is on track to break MLB\u2019s regular season single-game attendance record on Saturday, with more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,591,955,575,85,32472],"class_list":{"0":"post-38358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-venues"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}