With the baseball world taking up residence in Appalachia this week for the MLB Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway (near the homes of the Bristol State Liners, Elizabethton River Riders, Johnson City Doughboys, Kingsport Axmen of MLB’s summer collegiate league), I am geekily eager to see next week’s postgame hotel data.

There are just 94 properties in the Bristol, Tenn., area (7,249 total rooms), according to my friends at CoStar, the hotel industry’s data tracking analysts, and from what I have been told by several folks, every one of them is booked. My sometimes office-mate, Austin Karp, will be half-an-hour south in Johnson City, and my friend (and former SBJ colleague) Travis Ostrander is going to the game, but is staying in Asheville, N.C., 75 miles away.

The MLB media hotel, Marriott’s 305-room MeadowView Conference Resort in Kingsport, Tenn. (that’s where you can find SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo!), is 30 miles from the game at Bristol Motor Speedway.

For historical comparison, the occupancy rate at the market’s hotels last July and August was in the low 60% range and the average daily room rate was around $106, according to CoStar.

MLB has not had an official hotel partner since Sheraton’s five-year deal ended after the 2020 season, according to SBJ research.