NASCAR will restart its race schedule on May 17 with a 400-mile race at Darlington Raceway. The track holds 47,100 fans. The seats will be empty as protection against the spread of COVID-19. What NASCAR cannot say is whether those fans will watch the race on TV, or “skip” the race completely.
Three public companies control most of the tracks in the U.S. Their combined revenue from attendance runs about $200 million a year. For each race run without a crowd, a large chunk of that revenue disappears. So, like empty airline seats on an airline trip, it is money that can never be recouped by the carrier once the plane is in the air.
NASCAR is scheduled to make its return to racing on Sunday, May 17, at Darlington Raceway with a NASCAR Cup Series race that will serve as the first of seven races over an 11-day span at two different race tracks throughout May, the sanctioning body announced Thursday.
The race at the historic South Carolina track will be held without fans in attendance and is slated to be NASCAR’s first on-track action in more than two months as the sport and world in general have been on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The race will be televised on Fox. After the first race, there will be two more at Darlington, followed by three at Charlotte. The stands will be empty of those, too.
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