The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that the Braves and SunTrust Park are expected to be awarded the 2021 All-Star Game soon. Probably next week.
This year’s All-Star Game will be in Cleveland. Next year it’s at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. They already announced 2026 for Philadelphia as a part of America’s Semiquincentennial (look it up). Now baseball is filling in the year’s in between.
The last time the Braves hosted the All-Star Game was in 2000, awarded a couple of years before that. Like a lot of All-Star Games, the 2000 edition was awarded to reward the building of a new ballpark, Turner Field, which came online for baseball purposes in 1997. This time it’s to reward the construction of SunTrust Park. Basically, the Braves just need to keep building new stadiums every twenty years or so to keep this ride going. Just see if they can’t!
Commissioner Rob Manfred is certainly a fan of that. He didn’t comment on the 2021 All-Star Game specifically, but last November he made his feelings about all crystal clear:
Which is to say that, in the mind of the Commissioner of Baseball, the ideal situation is for baseball teams to be small parts of large, taxpayer-subsidized real estate concerns, as the Braves clearly are. How inspiring.