Rob Manfred: Atlanta a candidate to host MLB All-Star game in 2025

Baseball fans at Truist Park near Atlanta for the Atlanta Braves home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, on Friday, April 9, 2021. Friday’s home opener offered some prepandemic-like excitement, but even fans who support MLB’s choice to move the All-Star game and accompanying amateur draft are sad to see it go. (Lynsey Weatherspoon/The New York Times)

Baseball fans at Truist Park near Atlanta for the Atlanta Braves home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, on Friday, April 9, 2021. Friday’s home opener offered some prepandemic-like excitement, but even fans who support MLB’s choice to move the All-Star game and accompanying amateur draft are sad to see it go. (Lynsey Weatherspoon/The New York Times)

SEATTLE — Atlanta is a candidate to host the 2025 All-Star game, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday morning.

During his annual Q&A with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America during All-Star week, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked Manfred about when Atlanta could next host the event, be it 2025 or later.

“Atlanta is in the mix of clubs for the ‘25 All-Star game,” Manfred said. “I’m not prepared to go past that right now.”

Atlanta was supposed to host the 2021 game. MLB announced in April 2021 that it would relocate the event in response to Georgia’s new voting law.

Colorado hosted the event instead. The AJC asked Manfred during that week when Atlanta could receive the event in the future – and what, if anything, he’d need to see changed – and he responded:

“I’m not going to get into what I would need to see changed,” Manfred said in July 2021. “Atlanta is an important market to us, and it will certainly be an option at some point in the future.”

Texas will host the 2024 All-Star game. Philadelphia will host in 2026.

Wrigley Field and Fenway Park are also candidates for the 2025 event. Manfred mentioned the Cubs have been extremely interested in hosting the game again. Wrigley Field last hosted the Midsummer Classic in 1990.

“The level of interest among our clubs hosting an all-star game is really, really high,” Manfred said. He noted an importance on getting the event to places that haven’t hosted it in “a long time.”

Atlanta has hosted the All-Star game in 1972 and 2000.