What if College Football played games at NASCAR tracks to include fans?
Though NASCAR just had an event with more than 20,000 fans in attendance, it seems as if College Football is hanging by a thread heading into the fall.
There are plenty of hurdles to overcome when it comes to playing College Football and the health and safety of the student-athlete has to be on the forefront of every conversation.
As sports of all kinds- including NBA, MLB and NFL- seem set to return sooner rather than later, we all wait with anticipation to hear the fate of the 2020 CFB season.
Of course, fans are a big part of College Football and there’s little hope that even if a season is played, that all that many fans will be able to attend the games. At this point, we’ve seen some NFL teams announce that they won’t have more than 25 percent capacity at any home game this season.
For those playing along, that- under those same guidelines- Death Valley would hold about 20,000 at most. But what if there were a way we could get even more fans in the stadium?
While this might not apply to Clemson, this could mean something for some of the other College Football programs across the nation.
What if we played some of the bigger College Football games in NASCAR stadiums?
While not all NASCAR speedways have larger capacities than Death Valley- after all, Darlington Raceway only has a capacity of around 45,000- there is something specifically great about NASCAR venues that make them a perfect place if you’re going to attempt to have fans in a social-distancing world: There’s plenty of space.
Even in Darlington with its lower capacity, the raceway has tons of room on its actual racetrack in which fans could spread out across and around the field.
Could you imagine us seeing Darlington Raceway- perhaps at more than 50 percent capacity because fans can spread out across the bleachers and on the actual racetrack around the infield- host the Clemson vs. South Carolina game?
What about Daytona- which has a capacity of 101,500– hosting Florida vs. Florida State? That makes a lot more sense in terms of social-distancing fans and getting them in the venue.
Venues like Bristol, Indianapolis, Texas, Las Vegas and Kentucky all have capacities of more than 100,000, as well. Charlotte, Richmond and Atlanta are all just under 100,000 in terms of their capacities.
It’s not to say that this idea doesn’t have flaws because it does, but it’s something to think about. College Football has to get creative when it comes to playing this season and that could even mean looking at bigger speedways that can spread out fans in order to get them in the stadium.