Quote:
Originally Posted by cecil98
I disagree about the crowds growing in recent years. You realize, they removed thousands of seats in the last few years...We sit in the northern part of the Tower Terrace, and the last several years it has been "nearly" half empty.. there is no one in the lower seats. I'd bet the deed to my house they're not getting close to 200,000 anymore...
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According to the Indianapolis Star permanent seats at Indy peaked out several years back at 257,000. After the seat and grandstand section removals of the last few years seating is now down to around 230,000. And as you state there are many seats on the inside of the front straight that have been empty for years as well as some closed sections in the south end of the track. I don't know what the actual numbers are but with all of the empty seats your 200,000 people in the stands today when the race starts is probably pretty close. Of course there are people in the infield but that's way down from where it was years ago.
What's really killed the 500 is the lack of attendance during the rest of the "month". Practice and Qualifying crowds this year were as low as they ever been. Not all that many years ago Pole Day attracted as large a crowd as the race does now. Overall May attendance is no more than 50% of what it was 25 years ago at best.
The Speedway itself stated that actual 500 attendance for the full month in 2013 was 275,000 and for 2014 was 360,000. The numbers for 2014 reflected an additional 75,000 people that attended both the new Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the Jason Aldean concert the night before the 500.