More Venue Possibilities for the 2024-27 CrossFit Games in Birmingham
In the latest Talking Elite Fitness podcast, hosts Sean Woodland and Tommy Marquez – both of whom are CrossFit Games on air analysts – dropped a few more nuggets of information when it comes to where the 2024-27 CrossFit Games will take place specifically in its new location of Birmingham, AL.
Turns out the Protective Stadium and the connected Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex could be potential hosts for the Games, which adds more venues to the list along with the previously reported Birmingham CrossPlex, located roughly six miles away from Protective Stadium and the BJCC.
- “The facilities they (Birmingham) are offering,” said Woodland, “they have Protective Stadium, which is the outdoor stadium, the UAB football stadium that was completed pretty recently, like 2020 I think is when they completed the renovations on that. It’s a beautiful outdoor facility.”
- “Then they have what’s called the BJCC, the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. Now part of the convention center complex is Legacy Arena. Legacy Arena is another newly renovated indoor facility that has stuff like suites and a built-in video board and it’s wired for a lot of stuff the Coliseum in Madison is not.”
The details: Both Protective Stadium and BJCC offer amenities very similar to when were hosted at the StubHub Center in Carson, CA.
- Protective Stadium is a $200 million dollar facility located in downtown Birmingham and opened on October 2, 2021.
- The University of Alabama at Birmingham football team, the professional soccer league team the Birmingham Legion Football Club and the United States Football League use Protective Stadium as their home field.
- The Stadium seats just over 47,000 and just recently hosted the opening and closing ceremony of the 2022 World Games.
- The video scoreboard in Protective Stadium is one of the largest in college football.
- The Protective Stadium is a part of the BJCC which includes Legacy Arena.
- Legacy Arena seats over 17,000 for sporting events and is the host arena for the Birmingham Squadron of the NBA G League.
Worth noting: The Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center had seating for 10,000.
- During the World Games the arena hosted dance sports and gymnastics events.
- The BJCC also offers a 2,835 seat concert hall, a 1,000 seat theater and a 220,000-square-foot Exhibition Hall that can host vendors
- Two hotels are also connected to the BJCC that combined offer over 1,000 rooms.
The bottom line: The BJCC with the connected stadium provides a more sensical venue to host the Games due to the set-up and available amenities that it can offer athletes, Games staff, volunteers and spectators all in one location. This doesn’t mean the CrossPlex won’t be utilized as it houses a natatorium and a track that could be used for certain events at the Games.
What the BJCC also offers as both Woodland and co-host Tommy Marquez stated in their podcast are updated technology for broadcast and an infrastructure already put in place so CrossFit doesn’t have to incur extra costs by building or purchasing additional equipment.
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