Home Run Dugout, an Austin-based entertainment concept described as Topgolf for baseball, will open in Scottsdale near Loop 101 and Talking Stick Way on Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community land.
The company’s first Arizona location will be located next to the existing Topgolf near Talking Stick Resort & Casino, offering 30 batting bays, a Biergarten mini-field, an on-site restaurant, and three bars, according to Phoenix Business Journal. Each batting bay will have a 20-by-12-foot screen and five televisions to track stats and watch sporting events. The new Home Run Dugout will be 65,000 square feet, and construction is expected to begin in 2025, which will take nine to 12 months.
The decision to expand to Arizona coincides with Home Run Dugout raising $22.5 million in Series A funding, according to a news release. This is an exciting expansion for the company, which was founded in 2015 by childhood friends Nick Hermandorfer and Tyler Bambrick. The two first opened a location at the stadium of the Triple-A affiliate for the Texas Rangers, the Round Rock Express, before expanding to Katy, TX. On top of the new Scottsdale location, Home Run Dugout is also working on a new location in San Antonio.
“What we’re trying to do is reinvent the batting cage,” Bambrick tells the Phoenix Business Journal. “The batting cages aren’t that fun. I don’t like to stand in front of a 70-mile-an-hour pitch. What we developed and patented was our ground-up pitching machine. It’s a lot like dad soft-tossing it to you as a kid. It’s very easy to a kid and very not intimidating at all. We throw a tracking system along with that and gamify kind of the hitting experience. What we’re doing is creating a social environment around hitting a baseball.”
