Boyd Sports and Covenant Health announce name of Knoxville’s new stadium
Boyd Sports and Covenant Health announce Knoxville’s new stadium will be named Covenant Health Park during a press conference on Tuesday, August 27, 2024.
- In addition to three bars at Covenant Health Park, the Craft Corner will feature canned craft beer, including local options.
- The craft beer area will have local favorites from Alliance and Ebony & Ivory, which partnered with the Smokies for a lager honoring Knoxville’s former Negro League team.
- A Modelo-branded bar in right field and a Michelob-branded bar behind home plate are in addition to the Craft Corner and the Silver Bullet Bar reserved for club guests.
- Covenant Health Park opens April 15 with a six-game series between the Knoxville Smokies and the Chattanooga Lookouts. One Knox SC debuts at the stadium April 26.
Minor league baseball can be just as much about the beer in hand as the players at bat, and the Knoxville Smokies have a plan to quench fans’ thirst for a full-service downtown stadium experience with a variety of craft beer available on game day.
Don’t worry: They’ll have typical domestics, too.
Beyond the concession stands scattered around Covenant Health Park, which opens just east of the Old City on April 15, alcohol will be available at three bars within the multiuse ballpark. There’s also a dedicated area for craft beer.
Knox News already has reported that Ebony & Ivory Brewing, Knoxville’s only Black-owned brewery, has created the Steel Arm Lager in partnership with the Smokies as a nod to the Knoxville Giants, a professional Negro League baseball team in the 1920s.
After talking to the Smokies and the company delivering beer to the ballpark from some familiar breweries, we now have a better idea of how beer will be a big part of game days.
What Knoxville beer is at Smokies stadium Craft Corner?
Chris Allen, chief operating officer for the Smokies, told Knox News the “grab and go” Craft Corner on the first-base side is “going to have as much local beer as possible.” Only canned beer will be available in this area, including 16-ounce cans of the Steel Arm Lager starting April 15 (available March 1 at Ebony & Ivory).
This beer honoring the Giants, whose players will be a focus of statues planned for the stadium’s plazas, will be part of the Craft Corner for at least three years thanks to a deal with the Smokies. One of the Giants’ most notable players was Claude “Steel Arm” Dickey, a pitcher and the lager’s namesake.
Allen also confirmed Yee-Haw Brewing Co. will have beer in the stadium. The brewery, which now considers Knoxville its hometown, is the official craft beer of the Volunteers. Its Vol Lager is the first licensed and co-branded craft beer for UT, Knox News reported last year.
“Basically, if (a beer) is distributed by Eagle Distributing, it’ll be there,” Allen said about the Craft Corner.
Tennessee-based Eagle Distributing Company has home bases in Knoxville and Memphis. Knox News got in touch with Steve Merrell, sales and marketing director for Eagle, who shared which breweries should have beer available at Covenant Health Park on Opening Day:
- Alliance Brewing Company (Knoxville, Tennessee)
- Bell’s Brewing Inc. (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
- Blackhorse Brewery (Alcoa, Tennessee)
- SweetWater Brewing Company (Atlanta, Georgia)
- Tennessee Brew Works (Nashville, Tennessee)
- Wiseacre Brewing Company (Memphis, Tennessee)
“This is great. The stadium is exciting, and I am stoked to be involved,” said Chris Morton, co-owner of Alliance on Sevier Avenue, whose Kolsch and West Coast IPA will be at the Craft Corner. “I will be drinking beer there myself.”
In addition to the Craft Corner, the Smokies are curating three bars inside the stadium.
“Three is enough, isn’t it?” Allen chuckled.
‘Silver Bullet Bar,’ two others planned at Covenant Health Park
If you’ve seen the billboard near the Shell gas station overlooking the stadium, you know the Modelo Watering Hole is coming soon. What is it? Just “one of the hottest spots in the ballpark,” Allen said.
Located just behind right field near the stadium’s water tower feature, the “watering hole” bar will have a wait staff. A rendering labeled “a view across the field at the watering hole” shows a pavilion for shade and a handful of picnic tables. (The main picnic area is near left field).
The Michelob Ultra Backstop Bar is on the concourse level behind home plate, while the Silver Bullet Bar will be located on the upper level inside the Oak Ridge National Lab Federal Credit Union club.
Club ticketholders and those sitting in premium seats behind home plate will have access to the club and its catered food, and the space can be reserved when games aren’t happening for private events and meetings.
Future food, beverage options at downtown Knoxville stadium
Adding to the food and beverage options, a handful of restaurant, bar and retail spaces along Jackson Avenue have been built into the stadium with direct access to the street. The yet-to-be-announced businesses filling those spaces, along with the team store, will be open to the public throughout the year on game days and beyond.
And if you’re looking to walk and talk − maybe with a handheld lunch − the Covenant Health Park concourse is expected to remain open during daylight hours, doubling as a walking path with stadium views when the facility is not in use.
As Knoxville Smokies batters and pitchers are training for their home opener April 15, the organization is looking for the right players to join its team at Covenant Health Park, from bartenders to warehouse employees to retail workers.
Along with Professional Sports Catering and One Knoxville SC, which also will play home games at the stadium beginning April 26, the Smokies will host a job fair March 1, 8 and 15 for those who want to participate in the team’s historical return beyond cheering from the nearly 7,000 seats installed at the multiuse facility:
- March 1: Jackson Terminal | 213 W. Jackson Ave. | 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
- March 8: The Change Center | 203 Harriet Tubman St. | 1-4 p.m.
- March 15: Knoxville Area Urban League | 1514 E. Fifth Ave. | 1-4 p.m.
Beyond sports games, Covenant Health Park will host concerts and other events on the field, in the club and along its public plazas.
Joanna Hayes is the restaurant and retail reporter. Email: [email protected].
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