More than 100,000 fans flocked to Florida in February 2020 to watch the season-opening Daytona 500. Fast-forward one year, and a much smaller audience will attend the high-profile event. NASCAR will host an estimated 30,000 fans as the drivers kick off the Cup Series schedule.
“It’s going to be the largest sporting event that happens in the United States since COVID hit,” Daytona International Speedway President Chip Wile told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. He confirmed that there would be roughly 30% capacity in the grandstands for the big race and another “few thousand more” in the infield. The Daytona 500 is taking place one week after Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida. The NFL’s championship game will have an estimated 22,000 fans at Raymond James Stadium to watch Tom Brady versus Patrick Mahomes.
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NASCAR President Steve Phelps previously hinted that there would be several thousand fans in attendance for the Crown Jewel race. He spoke to The Sports Business Journal and confirmed that the five-year streak of sellout races would end. However, Phelps explained that everyone’s safety was the top priority for the racing’s governing body.
“The first and foremost obviously is trying to keep our competitors and our fans safe when they come to our facility, so we are eager as all sports are to welcome fans back,” Phelps said during the interview. “We were very aggressive in bringing fans back to this sport, so for us, it’s more of the same early on, obviously. So at the Daytona 500, we will have fans. In fact, we’ll have a fairly robust number of fans, probably in the 30,000 range plus camping, but we have to do it responsibly.”
NASCAR does not generally announce attendance numbers, but there were an estimated 25,000 fans at the Coke Zero Sugar 400 last August. Additionally, The Sports Business Journal reports that Bristol Motor Speedway had roughly 30,000 fans during the 2020 Cup Series season. NASCAR expects a similar amount at the dirt track race in April.
The NASCAR season begins on Feb. 14 with the Daytona 500. FOX will broadcast the action and will continue to do so for the first half of the schedule. The drivers will remain in Florida for the first three weeks while taking part in a road course race at Daytona International Speedway and then another race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Both of these latter events will also have reduced capacity crowds.
