Before going to Ravens games, Jake Zimmerman was like many other Ravens fans, either tailgating or heading to a bar somewhere around M&T Bank Stadium to hang out.<\/p>\n
Now, the Annapolis resident has a new way to pregame.<\/p>\n
Zimmerman was among the throng of fans who checked out the stadium’s newly upgraded North Plaza before Saturday’s preseason opening win over the Philadelphia Eagles.<\/p>\n
The Bud Light Talon, featuring the only open-air music stage inside the gates of an NFL stadium, and the Frank’s RedHot Backstage, a new indoor sports bar adjoining it, are two highlights of the final phase of the three-year M&T Bank Stadium renovation project.<\/p>\n
That project came to life for a Ravens gameday for the first time Saturday night, and fans were buzzing about how it turned out.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing. It’s a pretty incredible scene and a nice addition to the stadium,” Zimmerman said. “This might be the new norm.”<\/p>\n
Baltimore has long had a robust tailgating scene in its downtown parking lots, but the Ravens have brought it inside the gates, giving all fans with a ticket to the game an elevated and hassle-free pregame experience.<\/p>\n
Vonta Hunt came from West Baltimore to celebrate her birthday and plans on coming back.<\/p>\n
“I love it,” Hunt said. “It’s amazing \u2013 all the big TVs, the big area, all the food, everything. I love it!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before going to Ravens games, Jake Zimmerman was like many other Ravens fans, either tailgating or heading to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":974844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[128132,128133,184,117,2282,7,781,891,20472,11697,6,169,1049],"class_list":["post-974843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-2026-preseason-1","tag-2026-preseason-1-news","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-football","tag-general","tag-homepage-latest-headlines","tag-inline-news","tag-mt-bank-stadium","tag-nfl","tag-ravens","tag-ryan-mink"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117105941796512522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}