The Ravens haven’t held training camp at McDaniel College in five years, but the organization wants to bring the old Westminster feel to their Owings Mills facility in the coming summers.
Team president Dick Cass told reporters at the league meetings in Phoenix that the Ravens are exploring ways to accommodate more fans to attend training camp practices. The possibilities include buying land adjacent to the team’s training facility for additional parking.
After the Ravens accommodated a maximum of 500 fans at certain practices last summer, Cass told the team’s official website that they hope to bring 1,000 fans per day to camp workouts this summer and 3,000 spectators to individual practices by 2016, which would be more in line with the types of crowds they once saw in Westminster. The organization also plans to bring in more entertainment for fans at the training facility.
The Ravens held training camp in Westminster from 1996 through 2010, but the 2011 camp was moved to the training facility in Owings Mills due to the uncertainty that accompanied the offseason lockout. Baltimore officially decided a year later to keep summer workouts at their multimillion-dollar facility moving forward to better prepare for the regular season, but the move eliminated arguably the most intimate setting for fans to watch players and interact with them.
Cass said the Ravens will once again hold a training camp practice at M&T Bank Stadium this summer, which is currently slated for Aug. 3. It remains unclear whether they will hold another practice at the Naval Academy in Annapolis this summer.
