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Daytona Wants to Host College Football Games

Daytona International Speedway, the racetrack most famous for being the home of the Daytona 500, and other car racing events has begun work on a major renovation project.  This project is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

Daytona’s redesign will involve improving seating, changing the grandstands into more modern, wider seating that will be more comfortable for fan experiences.  It will also involve improving amenities such as providing better concessions and an increased fan experience through the use of more screens, both of the personal variety and of the jumbotron types.  Lastly improving luxury boxes and other high end fan experiences will be done.

When this is all completed the speedway will continue to have a capacity in excess of 100,000 spectators for major racing events.  However the plan will also be to expand the usage of the facility beyond just motor sports.

On Friday track president Joie Chitwood announced that he is interested in seeing the facility host other events, such as football and soccer games, specifically mentioning college teams the Florida Gators and Florida State Seminoles.

Where would the games be played?  Well the idea would be that they would be played on the infield grass, near the start/finish line.

Looking at the plans for the stadium and where the fans would be situated, we can’t see this as a good idea.  The speedway is quite simply too big, and the seating area would be way too far from the filed.  The sight lines and the distance from the infield grass are just not designed for events where the action takes place on this area.  The Speedway is designed as a racetrack, not a football stadium.

Look, I understand the business behind this, the re-design will cost somewhere in the range of $400 million to complete, and as a result the track is looking for more major events to host as getting a return on that investment based entirely on a few major races per year (and a bunch of minor ones) is extremely difficult.  The revenue streams need to be increased.  I just don’t see the facility being a proper site for events held entirely on the infield grass.

 

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photo credit: BRivey via photopin cc

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