Saturday, Bristol Motor Speedway will transform from a race track into a baseball stadium. It will host a regular-season MLB game between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds as part of the Speedway Classic, with a field on the infield.
The venue has sold more than 85,000 tickets, tracking to break the MLB attendance record. It might not be done hosting different events, though.
Officials from the NHL will be in attendance for Saturday’s game, according to Sportico, and WWE could also be in consideration at “The Last Great Coliseum” down the road. Bristol Motor Speedway president Jerry Caldwell said it’s a way to show the track’s versatility, and that means more non-NASCAR events could be in the works.
“We believe we will continue to show that Bristol Motor Speedway is a facility for lots of different types of events,” Caldwell said, via Sportico’s Jacob Feldman. “You can go down the list of the natural next—after football and baseball, then you’ve 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 … 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.”
Of course, Saturday’s game won’t be the first time an event outside NASCAR took place on the grounds. In 2016, Tennessee and Virginia Tech played a college football game on a purpose-built field in the infield. The game drew 156,990 fans in attendance – the largest crowd to ever watch an NCAA football game.
Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith also previously said discussions have taken place about putting a roof over the structure, according to Sportico. That could open the door for even more opportunities – which is where the WWE comes into play.
“We could do WrestleMania,” Smith said in July, via Sportico. ”You could have, who knows what, the biggest UFC fight in the world.”
MLB has made an effort to play regular-season games at unique sites. The league previously played the Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa and another last year at historic Rickwood Field in Alabama to honor the Negro Leagues. First pitch of Saturday’s game at Bristol Motor Speedway is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. ET on FOX.