NASCAR Rumor: Braves and Reds to play game at Bristol (Update)

This rumor is upgraded to ‘fact’ today. The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will play the first Major League Baseball game next August at Bristol Motor Speedway oval, where 146,000 spectators gather annually for stock car races.

The Speedway Classic will debut on August 2, 2025, and join the list of unique venues where MLB has played regular-season contests in recent years to bring the sport to new audiences.

The 0.533 of a mile (0.858km) oval Bristol racetrack, known as “Thunder Valley” to race fans, sits in the rural mountains of eastern Tennessee on the border with Virginia and hosts closed-cockpit NASCAR events, the most popular form of US auto racing.

The record attendance for an MLB game is 115,300, set in March 2008 for an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“Major League Baseball is excited to deliver a special game at Bristol Motor Speedway, a unique setting that sports fans will remember forever,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said 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.”

Other unusual settings for MLB games in recent years include Fort Bragg, a US Army base, in 2016 and the “Field of Dreams” cornfield ballpark in 2021 and 2022.

“Bristol’s location makes it the perfect ‘meet in the middle’ destination for a showdown between these two beloved clubs,” said Jerry Caldwell, track president of Bristol Motor Speedway.

A baseball diamond will be built across the track and infield of the speedway, mainly between turns three and four on the track.

Dimensions will be 330 feet down the lines, 400 to center field, 375 to the right-field alley and 384 feet to the left-field alley.

The high-banked concrete track infield has also hosted American football, with college standouts Tennessee and Virginia Tech playing there in 2016.

“This has been years in the making,” Caldwell said. “This has been a long conversation with our friends at MLB. It has been a wonderful collaboration to get to this undertaking.”

MLB will use architectural design company Populous and landscape company BrightView to construct the field, partners it has used in the past for games such as the recent one at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.

Bristol will have to make some adjustments to its facility, removing part of its pit road wall and one of the buildings where tires are mounted on the wheels during the race weekend.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves will play a ball game at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2025.

The MLB will supposedly announce it this Friday.