How big is the Daytona fan base and are they going to get bigger?
Oh not the numbers of fans, I mean how big each of them are! The track is being renovated. Highlights include:[ul]
[li]40 escalators and seventeen elevators, so fans don’t have walk up hardly any stairs. Maximum walking up is 20 steps.[/li][li]Three times as many concession stands.[/li][li]And of course, with all that what is most needed, seats that are much wider! (Seriously, up from 15 to 21 inches.)[/li][/ul]
Not sure if it is funny or an honest appraisal of the changing build of the Southern auto racing fan base.
DIS has needed renovations for years. The addition of escalators, elevators and concession stands brings the facility more inline to what you will find at other recently built sports stadiums.
In regards to the larger seats, Americans in general are getting bigger. If ISC wants to put larger seats in that’s their prerogative. To use that as a reason to disparage NASCAR fans is quite frankly ignorant.
Please do tell which other new sports stadiums have been designed so that the maximum number of stairs for any patron climbed to any seat is 20 or less. It is a push for most of them to just be ADA compliant with a few seats accessible to the handicapped at each level even if only via particular entrances. In general sports stadium elevators are for those few with special passes (like Suite Pass holders) and the handicapped.
I would not be surprised to discover that watching spectator sports frequently has positive correlation with obesity. It is a sedentary activity and the products advertised are usually not exactly targeting a fit demographic.
But the map of worst obesity rates in this country places the South as the most obese, you know, NASCAR country.
I do not blame Daytona for trying to cater to who their base is: a population that is older and fatter than it used to be, that is in numbers shrinking as they fail to attract so many younger fans even as they otherwise … grow. Of course it is their prerogative and may be a good business decision so long as they also do something to effectively address the declining popularity among younger fans.
I just find it amusing that the long term rise in obesity rates among the fan base was so notably absent in media reports about why these particular changes were considered good business choices.
