SPORTS AND ATHLETIC FACILITIES

[nashvylle]

10 hours ago, Sean blackdog said:

City leaders push for more women’s professional sports in Nashville. 
WNBA or Softball or Soccer or other. 
https://tennesseelookout.com/2021/06/01/city-leaders-push-for-more-womens-professional-sports-in-nashville/

I am all for WNBA or Soccer as there will already be several venues (Bridgestone or Municipal Auditorium // NashvilleSC Stadium or FHP) and it should be on the owner's to make money and if they don't, we aren't left with an empty stadium. 

I did not know there was a professional softball league. Let them use FHP. The article states women's hockey. I'm all for it! Municipal Auditorium if that works and Bridgestone for certain games / when available. 

Women's sports may not draw sold out venues every game, but it's a sound investment today because women's sports become more and more popular every year. 

And.... I'm all for 5-7K fans coming downtown several times a year. 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by nashvylle

[Nash_12South]

Through a niece, I know that middle and high school girls basketball is pretty strong in middle Tennessee, as way to get these girls into colleges. I've also been to many college women's basketball games that have higher attendance than the men's games. I think the WNBA could do well here, certainly not NBA numbers, but still decent.

[TheRaglander]

I have been to several US Women's National Team soccer games in Nashville and they draw an incredible crowd.  There is a NWSL league and Louisville has a team and they have an amazing venue.  The USWNT have players that will play in the NWSL too so that can draw a lot of fans to see them play.  My point is, I think a women's soccer team would do well in Nashville but don't know if they would expand so close to Louisville.

[Titans10]

46 minutes ago, TheRaglander said:

I have been to several US Women's National Team soccer games in Nashville and they draw an incredible crowd.  There is a NWSL league and Louisville has a team and they have an amazing venue.  The USWNT have players that will play in the NWSL too so that can draw a lot of fans to see them play.  My point is, I think a women's soccer team would do well in Nashville but don't know if they would expand so close to Louisville.

For Nashville SC to be a true soccer club they should field a NWSL club as well. The NWSL has also been putting up pretty good tv ratings as well. It would be cool to be the first club in the US with a men’s and women’s team that shared the same name.  

[LA_TN]

Thus far, my favorite is the Nashville Roller Derby (rebranded from the Rollergirls), founded 2006. Member of WFTDA. 

https://www.nashvillerollerderby.com/

[Sean blackdog]

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 

[Bos2Nash]

59 minutes ago, Sean blackdog said:

Today this morning from Facebook Sky5. 

Two weeks!!

And not to worry, the honky tonks will be involved. Tootsies is sponsoring Daniel Suarez's 99 car for the cup race on Sunday.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Bos2Nash

[titanhog]

^^Oh wow!  I would love to have a little matchbox car copy of that!!

[Sean blackdog]

Last week from News Channel 5 and Sky5. 
Add more seats.  

Edited June 14, 2021 by Sean blackdog

[titanhog]

Gonna be interesting to see what happens between the Superspeedway and the Fairgrounds.

Nashville has been trying to get a top level NASCAR race back in town for over 30 years with no luck…and now we get this one at the Superspeedway and will probably get one at the Fairgrounds.  I wonder if the Superspeedway race is longterm…or just for a couple of years until the Fairgrounds gets one…or if we’ll have both from now on?

[Titans10]

2 hours ago, titanhog said:

Gonna be interesting to see what happens between the Superspeedway and the Fairgrounds.

Nashville has been trying to get a top level NASCAR race back in town for over 30 years with no luck…and now we get this one at the Superspeedway and will probably get one at the Fairgrounds.  I wonder if the Superspeedway race is longterm…or just for a couple of years until the Fairgrounds gets one…or if we’ll have both from now on?

I’ve heard good rumors we might get a race at both

[titanhog]

7 hours ago, Titans10 said:

I’ve heard good rumors we might get a race at both

If they allow Dover and Bristol owners to both keep their 2 races, I’m guessing Dover will keep one of their races yearly in Dover and one at Nash Superspeedway…and Bristol will keep one at Bristol MS and one at Nash Fairgrounds?

[Titans10]

12 hours ago, titanhog said:

If they allow Dover and Bristol owners to both keep their 2 races, I’m guessing Dover will keep one of their races yearly in Dover and one at Nash Superspeedway…and Bristol will keep one at Bristol MS and one at Nash Fairgrounds?

that’s what I’ve heard

[Jamie Hall]

On 6/14/2021 at 12:35 PM, Titans10 said:

I’ve heard good rumors we might get a race at both

I've been reading the same speculation from NASCAR media folks. I'd be curious to know if one metro area has ever hosted Cup races at two different tracks in the same year.

[titanhog]

Good article in The Tennessean about NASCAR’s Cup series leaving Nashville…and the return today after nearly 40 years.  Pretty historic moment for race fans in middle TN.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2021/06/19/nascar-cup-series-return-nashville-superspeedway-geoff-bodine-dale-earnhardt-jr-fairgrounds/7731964002/

Gary Baker was "devastated" when the NASCAR Cup Series left Nashville after 1984.

He also understood why.

Baker, who bought Bristol Motor Speedway in 1978 and Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway a year later, said he "made a mistake" when he sold half interest in both tracks.

Visions of building a new superspeedway in the city dancing in his head, Baker tried to buy back those halves in 1983. He was surprisingly bought out by his partner instead.

"I was sick," Baker said. "I knew the potential. We could have kept the Cup date in the mid-1980s," he said. "Instead, I'm on the outside looking in."

And the NASCAR Cup Series left Nashville. Baker bought the track back in 1985, after his former partner filed for bankruptcy. It was too late. NASCAR had no idea who the new ownership would be and pulled the city's Cup date, which Baker "totally understood," considering the uncertainty at the time.

Come Sunday, some 13,490 days and nights will have passed since Geoff Bodine became the last driver to finish first in a Cup race in Nashville, and a winner will be determined in the Ally 400, the exclamation point to a weekend with three NASCAR races.

Those races will be at Nashville Superspeedway in Gladeville, 30 miles southeast of the city —  the kind of track Baker saw a need for, and had even purchased a site for, all those years ago —   and not the Fairgrounds, of course.

Nostalgia notwithstanding, Baker is tickled to see the series return to a city he said has a healthy appetite for racing.

"I was pleasantly surprised," said Baker, who grew up attending races at the Fairgrounds. "The other side of it is I saw it as a move for NASCAR to maybe go back to some of those original touchstones that made NASCAR to powerful to begin with. ... Nashville is one of its roots.

"Nashville knows how to throw a big party when a sporting event breaks out."

Bodine said he didn't recall much of a party after he visited Victory Lane at the Fairgrounds on July 14, 1984, after he had left Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt in his dust that day for the hard-earned second of 18 Cup victories in a career that spanned 575 races and 29 years.

He said he probably "got in his car and drove home."

Bodine, who lives in Florida, near Melbourne, with his wife and two Yorkies, said that's where he'll be watching this weekend's NASCAR races from. 

He'll be wearing a smile while doing so, happy the Cup series will have returned to a place near to his heart. 

"Nashville, when they quit going there, it really hurt me," Bodine said. "I was good there. I was looking forward to going back and winning some more ... and I'll say it again, beat Darrell (Waltrip)."

Waltrip had won five of the previous six races at the track and eight overall.

Bodine also will have a rooting interest this weekend. The year he won in Nashville, in 1984, was the same year the No. 5 car he drove for Hendrick Motorsports debuted.

There will be another No. 5 Hendricks car racing Sunday, piloted by Kyle Larson, who has a chance to extend the car number and owners' Cup win streak to two, some 37 years later.

"I texted (Rick Hendrick) the other day, 'I'm sure glad you brought that 5 car number back,' " Bodine said. "He said, 'Yeah, me too.' "

Bodine also is happy Nashville brought the Cup Series back.

"That's going to be huge; people are going to come out and support the track and support the races," Bodine said. 

Joe Williams is the last remaining staff member from the last Cup race in Nashville, which has hosted 40 races in the series. He was a 21-year-old public relations director at Fairgrounds Speedway then and spent many decades working there.

He'll be at the Nashville Superspeedway this weekend, too, helping with 102.5-FM's coverage. He MC'd the groundbreaking of the track and has been looking forward to this weekend since the time it seemed but a dream.

"I wonder why it took so long," he said of Cup racing to return. "A lot of things had to fall into place."

The words from Bodine's mouth speak directly to Erik Moses' heart.

Moses, who was named Nashville Speedway president last August, has looked forward to a weekend like this since he took the job.

"I want fans to come out here after being cooped up ... for a year and a half, to be able to come out in the sunshine in Middle Tennessee and enjoy some great racing, not only with their families and fellow fans but with their fellow citizens."

This will be Moses' and his team's first of four guaranteed cracks at a Cup race at the track after NASCAR gave them a four-year sanctioning agreement at the place opened in 2001, a place that was "built for Cup races" but never hosted one.

Sunday's Cup race sold out in May.

"My job and my staff's job is to take that four years and make that 40-plus years of Cup racing here," he said. 

Part of the allure of Nashville for Moses was the city's success with the NHL's Predators, the NFL's Titans and the MLS' Nashville SC, and sporting events, such as the NFL Draft and the NHL All-Star Game.

"My friends at the NFL, the tops of their head are still blown off from what they had here, that many people to watch big men walk across a stage," Moses said.

Moses gets why some people are still calling for NASCAR to return to the Fairgrounds — Bodine, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Chase Elliott included. For now, though, his main focus is Nashville Superspeedway and this weekend.

"I think it creates a tide that hopefully raises all boats," Moses said. "If any market in the country deserves more NASCAR, it's Nashville."

Baker always has believed that. Bill France Jr., former NASCAR president, did too.

Still, due to circumstances beyond either of their control, way back when, the Cup series left the city.

Baker recalled a lengthy meeting with France at his office in Daytona, Florida.

On the wall of was a map poked with pins, each representing a NASCAR-affiliated track.

"He pointed to that board and said, 'Gary, if that thing was bone clean, there was not a single NASCAR track anywhere in this country, and you asked me to pick the first city I would want to put in a NASCAR track, it would be Nashville,' " Baker said. 

Thirty-seven years later, NASCAR's top series is back where many here believe it has belonged all along.

[titanhog]

Speedway looked great on TV.  Packed crowd.  I’m sure we’ll have some cool photos to show later.  First Cup race in Nashville in 37 years….a success.

[titanhog]

[markhollin]

A couple more shots from the NASCAR Race sold-out crowd of 40,000 at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday courtesy of The Tennessean:

 

[nashvylle]

8 hours ago, titanhog said:

It's great that this event was a huge success, but this photo to me makes the shorter track at The Fairgrounds seem much more appealing. I could see myself getting bored with the much larger tracks, and it being so far away. 

[titanhog]

7 minutes ago, nashvylle said:

It's great that this event was a huge success, but this photo to me makes the shorter track at The Fairgrounds seem much more appealing. I could see myself getting bored with the much larger tracks, and it being so far away. 

Yeah…the sport used to be WAY more interesting when it was old southern moonshiners racing on small dirt tracks.  It got a little too big for its britches, so to speak.  All of the super speedways built in the 90s and 2000s was overdone.  Now…they’re trying to get back to the more interesting, fun races where there’s more strategy and scraping paint.  That’s why so many of the old timers want to bring the Fairgrounds track back into play.  It seems tracks like that are more the future of the sport than the superspeedways.  However…I do hope we get 2 races a year, whether that be 2 at the fairgrounds or one at each.  NASCAR brings a lot of money to an area in one weekend with its 3 races.

[Jamie Hall]

I watched the entire race Sunday -- I was really struck by how the commentators and a lot of people were gushing over Nashville, the turnout, and the potential future of NASCAR in Nashville. Nashville really proved itself to be a great NASCAR city.

[nashvylle]

Imagine a newly renovated racetrack + development around the NashvilleSC stadium:

https://twitter.com/NASCARonReddit/status/1407038152267739141?s=20

[BnaBreaker]

Admittedly I haven't been following the racetrack development all that much, so apologies if this is common knowledge I'm just not aware of, but are they planning on adding more seating?  

[markhollin]

25 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

Admittedly I haven't been following the racetrack development all that much, so apologies if this is common knowledge I'm just not aware of, but are they planning on adding more seating?  

Yes---expansion from about 10,000 up to 30,000.  We have a thread on the Fairgrounds Racetrack here that includes more info, renderings, etc.

U.P. is not letting me post the link, but you can find it on Page 4 of the thread listings. 
 

 

[BnaBreaker]

Thank you very much Mark!!