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By The Numbers, It’s Bigger Than Michael Jordan

Posted Oct 30, 2008 by Jackie Barron

Updated Oct 30, 2008 at 10:05 AM

At 9:20 this morning, the line of folks waiting to snag a seat inside Sarasota’s Ed Smith Stadium wraps around 12th Street and down Tuttle Avenue.

The city’s director of sports facilities, Pat Calhoun, expects the crowd to hear Barack Obama inside to swell to between 10,000 and 12,000.  Calhoun says the area roped off for the event can hold 8,000 in the seats and 4,000 in the alotted field space. 

The last time Ed Smith Stadium held a crowd this large was in 1991 for a Waylon Jennings-Willie Nelson concert, which had 13,000 people,  followed by a slightly smaller crowd in 1994 for basketball star Michael Jordan’s spring training baseball debut with the Chicago White Sox.

Jordan garnered attention from 13 live-media and satellite trucks.  Today’s Obama rally already has 14 stacked up outside the stadium.

Obama is slated to speak at 11:30 a.m.