The City of Hoover and the SEC on Thursday formally announced an extension to their long baseball relationship.

The league’s baseball tournament will remain at the Hoover Met through at least 2028.

But how close did the ballpark that’s been home to the event since 1998 come to losing it?

Well, it’s safe to say that threat was more of a reality in 2016 when the league put the baseball tournament up for bid. Commissioner Greg Sankey said eight cities submitted proposals to yank the event out of the Birmingham suburbs eight years ago.

There was no such bidding process this time around. Sankey said there was “outreach” from other interested parties for bringing the weeklong event to their city.

“Any time you come to the end of a contract with any of our championships, you’re going to have a lot of interest,” Sankey told AL.com on Thursday. “And we did. Credit to the City of Hoover for the work they’ve done to keep this here.”

That includes eight-figure investments into the stadium that opened in 1987.

A three-year plan is expected to cost approximately $24 million with $11 million already completed before the 2024 event — the last year of the current deal.

The city displayed renderings for the next phase of renovations to the Met that included replacing all existing chair-back seats, adding them to six additional sections around home plate, and adding a club section in left field, and a party deck beyond the right field wall.

How crucial were those improvements in keeping the event in Hoover?

“The effort to update and modernize the stadium built in the 80s and all that’s around it is critically important,” Sankey said.

Hoover mayor Frank Brocato agreed the improvements were essential.

“We’re competing with big-league stadiums that wanted this event,” he said. “Of course, they’re new and this one is 37 and we’ve certainly made renovations over the years to make improvements.”

The last two SEC baseball tournaments set attendance records, with the 2024 event bringing 180,004 to the ballpark. That broke the mark of 171,288 set the year before.

The 2025 version will take on a new look with all 16 teams participating in a single-elimination bracket. The most recent format included 12 of the 14 league teams playing a combination of double- and single-elimination games.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.