Hoover gears up for its 27th SEC Baseball Tournament

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The SEC Baseball Tournament on May 23-28 returns to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium for the 27th time.

The Hoover Met has been the home for the tournament every year since 1996 except 1997 when it was held at Golden Park in Columbus, Georgia, and 2020, when the tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. It also was held there in 1990.

The SEC last year renewed its contract to stay at the Hoover Met through at least 2024 but is keeping its options open for the 2025 baseball season, when Texas and Oklahoma will be part of the league, said Herb Vincent, SEC associate commissioner for communications.

Hoover officials continue to make tweaks to improve the experience for fans and teams alike.

This year, there will be new hospitality areas, including a Patio Club on the terrace lawn area above the outfield down the third baseline and a Tailgate Town where fans can rent tents on the grassy area between the Hoover Met Stadium and Finley Center on the first base side, Vincent said.

Guest service booths are being added at the main gate, the gate down the first baseline and at the Finley Center, where there will be a FanFest set up with games, activities and entertainment, said Erin Colbaugh, Hoover’s parks and recreation director.

There will be an increased focus on customer service in an effort to make sure the experience is pleasant for fans and teams alike, Colbaugh said.

A different company, On-Site Productions, is managing the FanFest this year. The Ferris wheel and zipline will be gone, but new additions will include a laser tag area and mechanical bull, Colbaugh said. The FanFest also will include an arcade that includes virtual reality games and driving simulators, inflatables, pool, air hockey, foosball, cornhole, a Euro bungee jump, large video screen broadcasting the baseball games and a stage with live entertainment, she said.

This year, there also will be a youth baseball tournament featuring up to 42 teams on adjacent turf fields held in conjunction with the SEC Baseball Tournament, Colbaugh said.

There are improvements for the teams as well. The locker room level, including the space for the umpires and grounds crew, has been renovated with new flooring, lighting, lockers and paint and renovated bathrooms, she said. The batting cages where teams practice on the nearby Field 1 of the Hoover Met Complex also will be covered to get players out of the hot sunlight, she said.

The format for this year’s tournament will remain the same, featuring the 12 SEC teams with the top winning percentages. Seeds 5-12 will meet in single-elimination play on the first day, followed by double-elimination play Wednesday-Friday. The tournament will return to single-elimination play Saturday, and the championship is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Last year’s schedule had to be shuffled due to rainouts early in the week, with additional games being played Friday and Saturday, but SEC officials still were pleased with overall attendance of 139,630 for the week, said Ben Beaty, assistant director of communications. That was the fourth highest attendance since the tournament began, with the highest being 162,699 in 2019. The championship game between Tennessee and Florida drew 13,270 people, the fifth largest crowd for an SEC baseball title game and second largest for a title game that didn’t include Alabama.

The 170 spaces at the RV Park at the Hoover Met Complex already are sold out for this year’s tournament, and reserved seating tickets inside the stadium sold out the first day they were offered, officials said.

General admission tickets are on sale at secticketoffice.com, including books with one ticket for each session for $110, six general admission tickets good any session for $78 or single tickets good for any session for $18. Specific single-session tickets go on sale May 21 after teams are selected. Group tickets of 15 or more people are $13 each.

For more information, visit secsports.com/championship/baseball.