Cobb County commissioners Tuesday night will consider allocating $1.6 million for the 2025 Major League Baseball All-Star game, which will be hosted at Truist Park.
About half of the money, which will be included in the county’s 2025 budget, would go toward paying staff overtime. Expenses are anticipated for traffic management and public safety training; equipment and lodging; and communication to residents about the event and its impacts.
The 2025 Midsummer Classic will be a first at Truist Park. Metro Atlanta was awarded the 2021 game, but MLB moved it just months before the game was to be played because of Georgia’s controversial new voting law.
“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star game,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said at the time. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”
The Cobb Commission had allocated $2 million for the 2021 game before it was moved.
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said she is grateful to have the game come to Truist Park.
“Planning has already begun with public safety,” Cupid said in a statement after the announcement earlier this month.
The agenda memo submitted by public safety director Mike Register says the county anticipates a “robust return” on the investment and that All-Star games in the past have generated between $37 million and $190 million in economic impact for host cities.
Those same impact numbers were also cited in 2021 by the county and Braves officials, who all said they came from the MLB. But representatives from MLB told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the league has no role in calculating the impact, and they had only compiled projections supplied by business interest groups from cities that have hosted the event over the past 20 years.
Sports economists say those estimates are often overstated.
Minneapolis’ tourism agency, Meet Minneapolis, estimated the 2014 All-Star game would add $75 million to the local economy. Months later, after factoring in the city’s rebounding economy, state officials identified an increase of roughly $21 million that could be attributable to the game.
When the Braves hosted three World Series games in 2021, the county spent $456,000 — about $105,000 more than officials had expected — when crowds without tickets for the game packed into the Battery, the mixed-use development surrounding the stadium.
During regular season games, the county also covers the cost of police for traffic control and security for Truist Park, the Battery and the surrounding area.
About the Author
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ajc/7M7IGLZ7GZFZ7HUAZZCVSZ3FVA.jpg)
