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Earlier this year, we told you all to circle April 13th, 2017 as the tentative day for you to go see the Braves open up SunTrust Park for its inaugural regular season. Now, the team itself has announced an official, concrete date for the first ever game in the park. It will happen on March 31st, and they'll be playing the New York Yankees in an exhibition game.
.@SunTrustPark officially opens on March 31, 2017 when the #Braves will host the Yankees in an exhibition game! pic.twitter.com/FZUIYwxkgF
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) September 8, 2016
As Mark Bowman pointed out on Twitter, this actually won't be the first time that the Yankees have helped the Braves open up a new stadium -- the Yankees and Braves played a couple of exhibition games at Turner Field before the Braves began the 1997 regular season. The Yankees also have an extremely large fanbase, so that will only help the attendance for this game.
However, you have to figure that attendance would already be huge for most of the first games at SunTrust Park. Even this exhibition game should draw a big crowd just from Braves fans (who are on the "A-List") and curious locals (who will find a way to somehow get tickets), so you should expect to see a full stadium for this game.
As we get closer to the end of what's felt like an extremely long season, we're also getting closer to the opening of the Braves' new ballpark and what should be the dawn of an exciting new era for the franchise. Now there are two major dates to look forward to when it comes to the new stadium-- the official home opener, and the exhibition game to cap off spring training.