The sports mashups we want to see
MLB in a NASCAR speedway should just be the start
Note: Thanks to everyone who came out to our Heat Check event last week in NYC! We had a ton of fun and are already talking about the next get-together. Stay tuned!
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, we’re talking about crossovers.
On Saturday, the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will play in the first Speedway Classic, an MLB game held inside the racetrack at Bristol Motor Speedway. Unfortunately, NASCAR drivers won’t be bumper-to-bumper down the straightaway while the ballgame is going on (for obvious reasons).
However, the game got us thinking…. What sports could actually run simultaneously? Give us your best mashup suggestion in the comments!
Eben: I think watching a baseball game from the stands of a 162,000-seat stadium is perhaps my worst sports nightmare. But as we were discussing it in the office this week, a colleague asked if I would feel differently if a NASCAR race was happening simultaneously. And YES, yes I would. Sports should do more simultaneous tickets. So here’s my idea. Darts and UFC, in a small, intimate space. Both sports have electric environments, and darts could easily fill the frustrating between-bout downtime that plagues most MMA events. So give me Luke Littler and Jon Jones co-headlining an event at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus amphitheater in Athens. You can call it “Bullseyes and Black Eyes.”
Jacob: This all feels to me like taking that TikTok trend of smashing multiple videos together and bringing it to real life, which is … frightening. But I have to say, that stuff works on me, so…
The most obvious mashup opportunity already exists. What the Braves do with “The Freeze” (who seems like a lock to make a cameo Saturday, come to think of it) is fantastic, but we could be going so much further. Why not have actual races along the warning track, with heats in the early innings and a final midway through the 8th!?
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Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.