As a budget-trimming measure, the Tennessee-shaped scoreboard at a new ball park set to open in downtown Knoxville in 2025 had been replaced by a more conventional board, but now the state-shaped feature is returning to plans.
As reported by Knoxville NBC affiliate WBIR, entrepreneur Randy Boyd, owner of the AA Smokies baseball team, will cover the cost of the 124-foot-by-31-foot feature, which represents a change from the more traditional 60-by-25-foot scoreboard that had been specified. The cost to add it, as well as some ribbon signage that will flank the interior of the structure, is estimated at an additional $1.593 million.
News of the scoreboard change emerged Tuesday morning as the city-county sports authority met for the first time since the fall.
First Horizon Park in Nashville where the Sounds baseball team plays has a distinctive guitar-shaped scoreboard, said Doug Kirchhofer, CEO of Tennessee Smokies baseball. Knoxville will get a scoreboard in the shape of the Volunteer State, he said.
When Smokies, the defending Southern League champions, move back to Knoxville, they'll be called the Knoxville Smokies instead of the Tennessee Smokies.
On Tuesday, the authority also accepted the official dollar amount for a couple other changes to seating areas it previously had approved, WBIR reported. The cost amount for the seating changes discussed last fall, including a change behind home plate, will be about $349,000, according to Barry Brooke, the sports authority's construction representative. That cost will be absorbed by Boyd, not the public.
The estimated cost of the project, with changes addressed Tuesday, is now about $116 million.
