We’ve been documenting alternative uses of ballparks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we may have the ultimate in Florida: The Pensacola Blue Wahoos (Class AA; Southern League) have listed Blue Wahoos Stadium, with complete ballpark access, on AirBnB.
We’ve al heard the stories about baseball employees hunkering down at the ballpark during the run to Opening Day, but these experience from the Blue Wahoos is on a different level. At $1,500 per night, the Blue Wahoos Stadium AirBnB experience features run of the ballpark, including the newly renovated and fully furnished clubhouse, a large bedroom with 10 beds, the batting cage, and the playing field. The experience covers everything available to players and more, including videogames in the clubhouse, breakfast at home plate and more. The newly renovated clubhouse at Blue Wahoos Stadium includes four leather couches, two flat screen TVs, a ping pong table, padded chairs, and two large tables. Two bathrooms with showers are connected directly to the clubhouse. The large bedroom is connected directly to the clubhouse and has four bunk beds and two queen-sized beds, allowing 10 to sleep comfortably. It also includes two flat screen televisions and a kitchenette with a fridge, freezer, coffeemaker, and microwave.
The Blue Wahoos, behind owner Quint Studer and team president Jonathan Griffith, have been especially active this offseason in keeping the ballpark busy despite the baseball industry being shut down. The Blue Wahoos have offered a “Stadium Dining Experience” since the beginning of May, where fans were invited for weeknight and Sunday brunch dining. (The Blue Wahoos and concessionaire Ryan Sanders Sports Services nailed our Best New Concessions Experience and Best New Food Item awards in the 2019 Ballpark Digest Awards, so we’re not talking low-end grub here.) Then came Bubba Watson’s Diamond Disc Golf Challenge, with a nine-hole disc-golf course laid out by team owner Bubba Watson.
In the last week we wrote about how the Texas Rangers, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Daytona Tortugas and Madison Mallards are presenting different forms of entertainment instead of hardball, presented a look at how the Pensacola Blue Wahoos turned Blue Wahoos Stadium into a disc golf course laid out by Bubba Watson, and detailed how critters were overrunning ballparks in Kentucky and New Jersey as part of petting-zoo and animal farm promotions.
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