FTW: MLB’s Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway featuring the Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds turns out to be massive failure for attendees, sparking comparisons to Fyre Festival
There was a moment on Saturday with the weather being all wet and crappy, where I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be ownage if the Speedway Classic got rained on and the game couldn’t take place?
That’s always the inherent risk with an outdoor sport like baseball, and trying to coordinate a singular, special event game; the one absolute thing that cannot be controlled – the weather. And almost if I prophesized the event, the weather did come into play at the Speedway Classic, and no matter how much MLB tried to stall, delay and wait out the weather, they only managed to get in a single inning of game in before they threw their hands up and suspended the game, proclaiming the game would be resumed the following day; on what was supposed to be a rare Sunday day off for the Braves and Reds, on account of them altering their schedules to accommodate a special event game.
So, owned.
To the fans in attendance who were probably hoping to watch the game, and either skip town and or make a trip of it on Sunday – also owned.
Television rights having to adjust for the unpredictable schedule change – owned.
However, all this ownage aside, on the ground level, as among the alleged 90,000+ attendees who descended onto Bristol Motor Speedway, hoping to be in attendance for a supposed special event of monumental proportions, there was apparently a whole lot more ownage, which as the angst and frustration grew, many were more than eager and willing to vent to the internet.
And as much as I’m the type of fan who loves baseball so much that I hate it, few things make me arrogantly smirk in satisfaction than whenever MLB fucks things up, which is precisely what happened with how they handle the ground operations at the Speedway Classic.
Most notably, the sheer lack of preparedness when it came to handling the event at the stadium level, with countless gripes about there being inadequate or not enough food available to attendees, primarily summed up by a photo montage of nachos without cheese and hot dogs without buns, with there being some very quick comparisons to the photo of a shitty sandwich that became the photographic embodiment of the notorious Fyre Festival shitshow.
Fans who aired out their frustration were immediately combatted by mostly people who weren’t there who for whatever reason feel the need to defend MLB, the event or venue, but it just leads to an absolute clusterfuck where nobody wins and people like me just want to sit back and watch the carnage like the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif.
But aside from the debacles revolving around food, there were many allegations of them running out of food and merchandise all before the game even got under way, and lots of piling on to the flop of the logistics of an event scheduled well beyond a year ago, despite the fact that it was at a NASCAR venue which holds multiple races a year without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus that it’s massive egg on MLB’s face for such horrendous planning.
Frankly, I don’t even really know why MLB wanted to do this in the first place. My guess is that it’s a veiled temperature check to see how the region supports MLB, because between Nashville and Raleigh, there’s always rumor about possible MLB expansion, with that general mid-Atlantic region being considered. But also MLB doesn’t need any reasons for doing anything other than the fact that they’re greedy cocksuckers who are trying to make money by any means necessary, and holding special events seems like an easy cash grab, no matter how poorly they execute it because fans are gullible and easy to manipulate into forking over their dough.
Make no mistake, this was entirely MLB’s fault for such poor planning, and such poor execution. And I love to see it, especially since I’m so far removed from my baseball fandom that I was nowhere remotely close to experiencing it. Maybe a decade ago when I was still pretty hard into my fandom, I’d be tempted to be a part of it, but I’m really fucking glad that I’m where I’m at now, and had no interest in it.
And of course, the Braves won the game, in spite of them giving up a run in the one inning they played on Saturday. Which kind of stinks from the standpoint of that the Braves will hold onto this meaningless win and inject as much meaning into it as possible amidst a horrendous season, and I don’t want them to have any wins to celebrate, because this team will never truly ever get better unless they hit a bottom that really makes them try to rethink the way they operate.
But whatever, massive lol’s on my end, for all the sheer amounts of ownage that was doled out over the weekend on account of MLB’s pathetic fuck ups.
