As you all know, the Lerner family has been looking to sell the naming rights to Nationals Park, and the team has given me the exclusive opportunity to reveal the ballpark’s new name today!  I am so excited to bring you this exciting EXCLUSIVE news story today before any other reporter.

As part of the Nationals’ plan to make the game experience more fan-friendly, the Washington Nationals have unveiled the new ballpark name, announced new stadium amenities, and revealed new promotions for the 2016 season.  The team will now call their home “MattsBats Park” after the popular hometown blogger, the youngest Pro Blogger on the MLB.com network.  The team was expecting to receive $250 million for 20 year name rights from large local companies like GEICO, Lockheed Martin, or even Amazon.com (owner of the Washington Post).  Instead, the Nationals thought the prestige of calling their ballpark MattsBats Park was worth doing it for free.  The deal is for only one year and will expire after the Nationals win the World Series at MattsBats Park in 2017.  Then it’ll probably just be called Capital One Field or something.

Nationals Chief Revenue Officer Valerie Camillo also announced new giveaways and promotions to encourage fans to come out to MattsBats Park during the 2016 season:

Giveaways- On June 12, when the Nationals take on the Phillies, all fans will receive a life-like Jayson Werth’s Beard mask! More exciting, the beard is made out of actual hair collected from Jayson’s dog, Magnus.  You will look exactly like Jayson when you put the dog hair beard on your face!  Plus, anyone who tweets a picture of themselves wearing their dog hair Jayson Werth Beard mask to the Twitter account of @JWerthsBeard will be re-tweeted with lots of emojis and gifs.

Also, on August 28, the first 20,000 fans will be treated to a free lunch at Chipotle with reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper courtesy of Harper (on his lifetime free burrito card).

Thanks chipotle for my free burrito’s for life card! The best thing ever! I really appreciate it! @chipotletweets pic.twitter.com/JSn7DYmvy8

— Bryce Harper (@Bharper3407) March 19, 2013

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Fan Experience- This season, when the Nats play the Orioles in the Battle of the Beltways matchup, every fan in a Nats jersey will get free noise-canceling headphones. These headphones provide strong defense against the irritating sound of the Orioles fans chanting “O!” during the Star-Spangled Banner.

Food- Although he’s no longer playing shortstop for the Nationals, Ian Desmond will be back at Nats Park this season in the form of a new restaurant he has opened on the club level called “Steak, Taters, America.” The restaurant will solely serve steak and tater tots, and will also have a patriotic theme. All employees will wear the Nationals Archive-designed T-shirt bearing the same name, which you can see being worn by Nats first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, basically anytime he is not wearing a baseball uniform.

Finally, before this fun filled season begins at MattsBats Park, I’d like to say-

APRIL FOOLS!

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