Knoxville Multi-Use Stadium

• Name: TBD (working name: Knoxville Multi-Use Stadium)
• GPS-able Address: 400 E. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37915
• Ballpark Owner: Knoxville Sports Authority
• Architects: GEM Associated Architects
• Groundbreaking: 6/13/2023
• Minor League Baseball Teams: present Tennessee Smokies (AA)
• Class/League History: to begin in AA/Southern League
• First Professional Baseball Game: expected in 2025
• Others Playing or Operating Here: TBD
• Previous Ballpark Names: None
• LF: TBD CF: TBD RF: TBD
• Seats: TBD
• Stated Capacity: approximately 7,000
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): TBR

Knoxville Multi-Use Stadium is the working name of a ballpark under construction in Knoxville, TN, that will become the home of the present-day Tennessee Smokies of the Double-A Southern League. The Smokies currently play in nearby Kodak, TN, a small community east of Knoxville.

A brand-new hilltop stadium in Kodak lured the Smokies out of Bill Meyer Stadium east of downtown Knoxville in 2000. Nearly two decades later, the city and Knox County approached Boyd Sports about bringing the team back by building a stadium in Knoxville's Old Town. Local entrepreneur Randy Boyd - now president of the University of Tennessee System and from 2014-2016 Tennessee's director of economic and community development - had purchased the franchise from its parent Toronto Blue Jays in 2013. Boyd began buying up suitable land, which the media first connected to a possible ballpark in 2016, and in 2021 he shepherded $13 million toward a proposed new municipally-owned stadium through the Tennessee General Assembly.

The Knoxville Sports Authority was then created as a joint city-county entity to oversee the stadium. At the outset, Boyd had hoped to have it ready for the 2023 season but he said at the time that was very ambitious. In July 2021, he pushed it to 2024. However, citing volatility in global supply chains, the Smokies announced in April 2022 that they would play the 2024 campaign in Kodak - conveniently, the last season of the current stadium lease.

The project moved from possible to near-certainty with three key mid-November 2021 votes as the sports authority, the Knox County Commission and Knoxville City Council all, in turn, approved the funding plan. The last crucial task happened on May 24, 2023: the sale of $65 million in municipal bonds. While this typically precedes construction, publicity around the June 13th groundbreaking yielded the fact that construction had been underway since the previous March.[1]

The reason the groundbreaking ceremony was delayed was to let the bond sale happen first. However, it still comes in as the first groundbreaking since the Coronavirus pandemic for a stadium known at its outset to be the home of a Professional Development League team.

The city and Boyd agreed to include language in the lease that will be written for the team to use the stadium, which will hold roughly 7,000, to require that "Knoxville" is in the team brand. Boyd has separately indicated the Smokies nickname will remain.

Originally a $65 million project, the final cost estimate had ballooned to $114 million because of inflation and supply-chain problems. Those factors also delayed the opening season from 2024 to 2025. The project is being funded largely under a Tax Increment Financing district.

As a result, more became less as the Sports Authority tried to mitigate the ballooning cost by cutting thousands of square feet from the project.[2] Boyd and the city signed the final project agreement in April 2023.[3]

Boyd Sports designed and will operate the ballpark, but the Knoxville Sports Authority will own it and the Smokies will pay $1 million a year to rent it. Boyd donated about half of the land after spending millions buying up what would be needed. He will front cost overruns up to at least $30 million, and can recover up to $20 million from the TIF proceeds.