Equal Access

The Americans with Disabilities Act has been law for 17 years, but is it working in sports? In the first of a two-part series, SportsBusiness Journal examines why the law still remains a work in progress.

He went barreling down the incline from street level to Fenway Park’s main concourse, sticking out his right arm to hook a concrete post and turn 90 degrees. From there, Kevin McGuire began the climb up a steep hill that led to his destination: an elevator to the club level, and a wheelchair space overlooking third base.

McGuire, 46 and still fit from years of basketball and tennis,navigated the rugged terrain with aplomb. He has been without the use of his legs since age 7, when a drunk driver veeredinto a neighbor’s front yard, where McGuire was playing ball.

President George Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law during a White House ceremony on July 26, 1990.

As a child, his parents pushed himto be independent, demanding that he be placed in mainstream classes. When hewent off to Boston University, they insisted that he make the drive, belongingsin tow, alone. He was elected student body president and went on to law schoolat Georgetown.

Since 1991, he has owned andoperated a Boston-based consultancy that specializes in compliance withdisability laws, working mostly on the side of teams, facilities and concertpromoters.

A few steep slopes will not keepMcGuire from getting anywhere, and certainly won’t keep him from a difficult tocome by, birds-eye perch at Fenway on this night, with Barry Bonds and the SanFrancisco Giants in town.

He will pop over a curb whenothers block his way. He will churn uphill, jaw clenched and arms pumping,stopping to chatand joke with strangers asthey clear space for him in an elevator. He will get to his wheelchair space intime to spy Bonds stretching along the left field line before the game. Andwhen those in the rows in front of him rise, first for the national anthem andthen to cheer the return of World Series hero Dave Roberts, he will point outthe unobstructed view.

“We’re lucky up here,” McGuiresaid, scanning the crowd. “Now that everybody is standing, a lot of people inwheelchair seats can’t see a thing.”

Signed into law on July 26, 1990,by the previous President Bush, the Americans with Disabilities Act was meantto guarantee people with disabilities equal opportunities for employment,transportation, government services, telecommunications, commercial facilitiesand public accommodations.

Inherent in the latter two is theright to enjoy a sporting event or concert as others do.

Fifteen years after the ADA wentinto effect, those who design, build and run the stadiums and arenas that housethose events say they still are sorting out precisely what that means, warythat a mistake or misinterpretation might get them sued.

Some of the more tangiblerequirements are spelled out numerically, in feet, inches and percentages in acomprehensive document known as the ADAAG (ADA Accessibility Guidelines), whichreads similarly to a building code.

A wheelchair space must be atleast 33 inches wide and four to five feet deep, depending on whetheryou arrive at it from the side or rear, and it must include three more feetbehind it to allow for movement. Service counters and cash registers mustinclude a section that is no higher than 36 inches. Stadiums and arenas thatopened after 1990 must offer wheelchair locations equal to 1 percent of theirseating capacity: 650 for a 65,000-seat football stadium, with room for another650 “companion seats” positioned next to them.

But other matters are left to interpretation.

The one-to-one ratio of companion seats to wheelchair spacesseems to be at odds with the purchasing habits of ticket buyers, who typicallyattend games in groups of three or four. Is it fair to break up a family offour because one member is in a wheelchair, when an able-bodied family of fourcan land tickets together? It would seem not. But the ADA never addresses thematter directly.

Teams and the consultants who help craft their ADA policiessay that phrases like “reasonable accommodation,” “readily achievable” and“equally distributed” cry out for clearer definition.

The standards applied to buildings that were constructedbefore the ADA are even murkier. There is no grandfather clause within the ADAbut older buildings are given significantly more latitude. While there are onlya handful of those left in pro sports — Fenway, Wrigley Field and MadisonSquare Garden, for example — most college stadiums fit that designation. Everytime a university upgrades its hallowed football stadium, it must reconsiderwhere those renovations place it in light of ADA standards, and how much itwill cost to fix any shortcomings.

Complicating matters further are split decisions that havebeen rendered in federal courts across the country. A court in Washington,D.C., ruled 10 years ago that wheelchair users are entitled to lines of sightover standing spectators, a standard that the U.S. Department of Justice, whichenforces the ADA, has since endorsed. A year later, a federal court in Oregondisagreed. And, in October, a federal court in California ruled that CaliforniaSpeedway need not provide sight lines over standing spectators because thegovernment still has not properly enacted the rule. That case is under appeal.

All of this frustrates many architects, who are used todealing with the certainties of building codes. Ed Roether, the ADA specialistat architecture firm HOK Sport, points to building code changes that alreadyhave been enacted in response to a nightclub fire that killed 100 in RhodeIsland in 2003.

“In ADA, we’re still struggling with what the hell it meant 15or 16 years ago,” Roether said.

If the ADA dealt only with measurables, architects andoperators would have fewer questions. But the ADA is not a building code,written to protect people from a fire or a collapse. It is civil rights law,meant to protect them from discrimination.

That’s a far more interpretive matter, particularly instadiums and arenas, which spread thousands of people across large spaces atvaried heights.

Disabled people, like many fans, enjoy attending sporting events in small groups yet often face limits of just one companion seat in wheelchair sections set aside by stadiums and arenas.

“We have spent a lot of our time dealing with sports stadiumissues,” said John Wodatch, a civil rights attorney who oversees the JusticeDepartment’s disability rights section, “because we’ve gotten a lot ofcomplaints about them.”

An ADA complaint can be costly. The Justice Department canseek fines of up to $55,000 for a first violation and $110,000 for a secondviolation. Federal disability law does not allow plaintiffs to sue for damages.They can only demand repairs, plus attorneys fees. But seven states, includingCalifornia, allow for damages. In large facilities, a “repair” might constituteripping out rows of seats or resurfacing concourses.

With the stakes so high, many teams and architects hireconsultants such as McGuire to point out problems before they lead to lawsuits.

“You have the law itself, with pages and pages of guidelinesand regulations, and yet you still have these hazy terms and you have to havecourt decisions to determine what they should mean,” McGuire said. “But thishas been the law for a long time now. We’ve had court decisions. In most cases,people really should understand what they’re supposed to do.”

For their part, the Red Sox point to tens of millions theyhave spent to make most of the ballpark’s concourses and rest rooms wheelchairaccessible. They have put in four elevators, added wheelchair spaces in thefront row, and blown out three rows of seats at the top of the right-fieldgrandstand to create clear lines of sight for 17 wheelchair spaces. Late lastmonth, they were working on gaining city approval to install an elevator thatwould lead to seats atop the Green Monster.

Janet Marie Smith, the noted architect who has redesignedFenway, estimates that about one-third of the approximately $100 million thatJohn Henry’s ownership group has spent on renovations in the last five yearshas gone toward ADA compliance.

“We feel that ADA is not a burden or something to be pushedaside, but rather something to embrace,” Smith said. “It’s the right thing todo. It’s also the law.

“I realize that a building that is 95 years old still has along way to go, but I hope the ownership gets credit for something that hasbeen an annual effort to make Fenway better.”

Making Fenway’s concourses accessible has been particularlycumbersome. Three had to be torn out and redone. Smith said the concourseMcGuire traveled, which stretches from home plate down the first base line, isthe only one the Red Sox have not made accessible, in part because they haven’tdone any other work in that area and in part because the slope and angles willmake it even more difficult to fix than the rest.

That concourse also happened to be included on the shortestpath between the only will-call window at which you can pick up wheelchairaccessible tickets on game day, and the elevator up to McGuire’s seats thatnight.

McGuire said he was skeptical about the Sox spending anythingclose to $30 million on ADA compliance, based on what he’s seen. He pointed outthat the wheelchair spaces atop the Green Monster had to be redesigned twicebefore they met ADA standards, and that new construction in right field alsoran afoul when it opened and had to be fixed. He said he reported both to theBoston-based Disability Law Center, an advocacy group that last year honoredthe team for improving quality of life for the disabled.

“If they really cared they wouldn’t have screwed up on rightfield and they wouldn’t have screwed up on the monster seats,” McGuire said.“And people with disabilities wouldn’t have to go to . . . advocacy groups toget them to do it right.”

Guidelines changing?

Three years ago, the government agency that crafts theaforementioned ADAAG — the guidelines that serve as an architect’s road map onADA issues — wrote a sweeping revision that included mostly minor tweaks andclarifications with regard to stadiums and arenas.

With one exception.

Hearing for years from architects and operators who complainedthat wheelchair users were buying fewer than half of the spaces that the lawmandated that they provide, the Access Board reduced the required number from 1percent of capacity to 0.5 percent.

It may not sound like much. But for an NBA or NHL team thatsells out most of its games in an arena that seats 18,000, cutting the numberof required wheelchair spaces by 90 can set off a mighty revenue multiplier.Because a wheelchair space is deeper than a standard row and wider than astandard seat, one row with eight wheelchair spaces can easily convert to 20 or30 additional seats.

Stretch that out across 41 games and you’ve got about 10,000more tickets that a team can sell. At an average of $40 each, that’s $410,000in unlocked revenue.

“We got huge numbers of calls from the industry saying, ‘Canwe use the new guidelines now? Can we use them now?’,” said Marsha Mazz, anaccessibility specialist with the Access Board. “We’ve had to fend off thosecalls, saying ‘No, no.’ At this point, I think they’re all out there, waitingfor the other shoe to drop.”

The “other shoe” would be adoption of the new ADAAG by theJustice Department, a process that has taken so long that many in the businessare skeptical of whether it will ever happen. You see, while the ADAAG and theADA are joined at the hip, the ADAAG, by itself, is not law. Its revisionswon’t be enforceable until the Justice Department adopts them.

That hasn’t happened, leaving them in bureaucratic limbo.

“They’ve written a whole new document, which is a lot better,and it’s sitting there,” said Craig Stockwell, an associate principal andproject manager at sports architect HKS, which designed the NFL stadiums nowunder construction for the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys. “We have tonotify the owners that it’s out there. We’re bound to tell our clients aboutthat. As soon as they look at it, they want to use it.”

To do so at this point, Mazz said, would be “foolhardy.”

It does appear that there soon will be movement, though.Wodatch said late last month that the revisions should move into their nextstage by February, when they’ll be published along with an accompanyingdocument laying out more specific rules on matters such as ticket policies.

The latter part of that will be of interest to many who calland e-mail his office, pleading for clarifications.

After at least 60 days of public comment, the rules go back tothe Justice Department for revision, and then get sent on for an impactanalysis. They would be implemented in 2009. The reduction of wheelchair spacerequirements may make it all the way through that bureaucratic pingpongprocess. Or it may not.

Changes proposed for the ADA would allow stadiums and arenas to cut in half the number of wheelchair seats they offer to patrons.

Disability rights advocates point out that the law alreadyallows teams to sell wheelchair spaces to able-bodied fans as season ticketsonce the rest of the seats on a level have been sold, and to convert unsoldspaces into temporary seating for individual games and concerts. They can’t seewhy the government should cut the requirement in half when teams already cansell unused spaces.

They also argue that wheelchair usage is increasing as peoplelive longer and yet remain active. Children with disabilities grow up doingmany of the same things as their classmates, so it’s likely they’ll do many ofthe same things as their neighbors as adults. Plus, sports venues have decadesworth of perception to overcome.

One disabled fan who was at Fenway on the same night asMcGuire, John Kelly, was visiting for the first time in 10 years. He hadn’tbeen back because on his last trip, he sat along the first base line andcouldn’t see over the people in front of him.

“People with disabilities do not have a history of feelinglike they can go to sporting events,” Wodatch said. “Because they were neverwelcome, these were never places to go. As people understand thoseopportunities are available to them, there will be an increase [in use].”

For all the work that architects have done to create spacesthat offered clear views and integrate them throughout the seating bowls, mostteams report that wheelchair users buy fewer than half of what the law requiresthey provide.

As a result, designers have made a priority of creating spacesthat can flex between wheelchairs and rows of seats.

“When it comes down to it, there’s a revenue issue here,” saidChris Lamberth, director of business development for 360 Architecture, whichdesigned American Airlines Arena in Dallas and Nationwide Arena in Columbus.“The facility operator needs to be able to adapt when they don’t need that wheelchairseat.”

The ADA allows for the practice. Teams and promoters are notexpected to forgo revenue in order to provide an accommodation that no one willuse. But the Justice Department has warned operators to tread carefully whenfilling in wheelchair spaces. It has heard complaints that once teams put“temporary” seating in atop wheelchair spaces, they tend not to take it out.

“Too many times, those wheelchair seats disappear forever,”said McGuire, the ADA consultant. “The wheelchair users have a right to thatseat before someone else does, but they’ve got no idea that it’s even supposedto be there, and no one tells them. So how can they buy it?”

That was one of the complaints in a lawsuit that a group filedin November 2002, against Kroenke Sports, owners and operators of the DenverNuggets and Colorado Avalanche and their arena, the Pepsi Center.

The design of the building included aluminum platforms thatwere to be placed over seats, creating wheelchair spaces at the center of thelower bowl. But when several disabled people tried to buy those spaces forvarious events, they were told the spaces didn’t exist.

“As we began to talk to them, it became clear that therereally were no platforms, or that they were up in somebody’s attic,” said AmyRobertson, the Denver attorney whose firm represented the group, and alsorecently negotiated a record $13 million ADA settlement with Kmart. “We askedthat it be built OK. It wasn’t. But they were friendly and quick to fix itafter they got sued.”

Unfortunately, Kroenke could not remedy the problemimmediately, because the locations were sold as season tickets. The settlementrequires that they be converted as people give them up. It also calls foroccasional monitoring of the arena’s ticket sales practices.

“I think we’re better prepared now than we were prior to thatto assist and serve the needs of the accessible needs patron,” said PaulAndrews, executive vice president of Kroenke Sports. “But I don’t think therewas anyone to blame. I think if we’d actually gone to court who knows what theinterpretation would have been. The law is written pretty ambiguously.”

Another point that isn’t clear deals with the way teams dealwith unused wheelchair spaces.

“There is a real question as to, OK, at what point in time canyou actually sell that wheelchair space to someone else,” said Roether, of HOK.“That’s really tough to get your arms around.”

While that’s not laid out in the ADA, Deval Patrick, nowgovernor of Massachusetts, spelled out the federal government’s position on itin a letter he sent to the commissioners of baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL inOctober 1996, when he was assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights.

“Before wheelchair locations can be replaced with otherseating,” he wrote, “all other seats in the stadium must first be sold.”

Advocates say that as handicapped people enjoy more active lifestyles, they will be looking for better options for attending sporting events.

Straightforward as that may sound, it does not address a morecomplicated question: What the policy should be when a team sells almost allits seats to season subscribers, as many NFL teams do.

The New England Patriots’ home, Gillette Stadium, opened in2002 with a mix of concrete wheelchair areas that could be filled in withtemporary seating, and aluminum platforms that can be removed to reveal threerows of seats. It is a model of flexibility.

Dan Murphy, vice president of business development andexternal affairs for the stadium, estimates that removing a platform that fits20 wheelchairs would reveal about 90 seats. Soon after the stadium opened, theteam received state approval to remove some platforms and sell the seats underthem as season tickets, so long as they held open at least 250 more wheelchairspots than they had sold, on average, the previous year. Able-bodied fans whobuy those season seats agree to be relocated the following season if awheelchair user requests them.

Last season, the team sold 208 wheelchair and companion spotsas season tickets, spread across 81 accounts. It held open an additional 380for single-game sales, and relocation of fans who bought or were given standardseats, but needed wheelchair spots. Murphy said they could have met thosedemands and removed more platforms, but chose not to. Instead, they’ve donatedwheelchair spots to local advocacy groups.

“Although they’re temporary in nature, they’re permanent inour eyes at this point,” Murphy said. “I don’t want to sound corny here. Butit’s really just doing the right thing.”

Neither the ADA, nor the guidelines, bridges the gap betweenwhat is right and what is required when it comes to release of wheelchair seatsfor games that are sold out.

“There are sometimes some immeasurables,” Mazz said. “We tryas hard as we can to make all of this quantifiable and measurable. Some of thehard questions are in the immeasurable and unquantifiable area.”

A minimum distance between rows is measurable. More difficultis a policy that ensures that a fan in a wheelchair can buy two, three or fourseats together at the same range of prices offered to other fans, when only oneout of 100 seats — or even fewer in the case of older buildings — are fit forwheelchairs.

Four days before the Red Sox game against the Giants, whichhad been sold out for months, the team put a handful of additional seats onsale in two sections — $23 bleacher seats and $45 right-field box seats. Theonly wheelchair seat available with an adjacent companion seat was in thepavilion club, priced at $158 each.

After a second call to the box office and a measure ofprodding, the Red Sox also offered up a wheelchair spot in the grandstands, butcould only provide a companion seat one row down and three seats over.

While the guidelines clearly require that companion seats beshoulder-to-shoulder with wheelchair spaces, a Red Sox ticketing executive saidthey sometimes end up with a stand-alone wheelchair space in a row becausethey’ve accommodated someone who wanted to bring more than one companion.

“That happens a lot,” said Ron Bumgarner, vice president ofticketing for the Red Sox. “We’re always trying to say yes to every request weget.”

The illustration shows ADA recommendations for sight lines from wheelchair sections, which are intended to allow for clear views even when patrons in closer rows stand.

Red Sox fans are less likely than others to be bothered by aseparation, Bumgarner said, because they know that demand at Fenway is so high,even for single seats. “In a nonaccessible seating category, if I can get Row 6and Row 12, gosh, that’s almost a pair,” Bumgarner said. “But, having saidthat, we try to stick to a hard-line policy of one-to-one that keeps themtogether.”

Twenty-one of 34 stadiums and arenas that responded to aSportsBusiness Journal survey on ADA matters said their policy was to provide onecompanion seat per wheelchair user. Further interviews revealed that some ofthose are flexible when asked for more. But Wodatch said his office has foundthat many aren’t.

In this case, the wording of the ADA regulation, whichrequires one companion seat for each wheelchair spot, departs from the intentof a law meant to give disabled people the same options as others.

“They should be able to sit together,” Wodatch said. “I havedisabled people in my office who don’t go [to a game] because a father can’t gowith his two kids and watch them. He can’t sit with them both.”

Bumgarner said the Sox don’t often sell out of wheelchairtickets, and that their policy is to hold unsold wheelchair and companion seatsopen until 72 hours before game time, at which point they begin to release themin phases, holding back some for exchange all the way up until game time.

“It’s very difficult,” Mazz said. “All we know how to do onour end is to write a technical standard that tells you how to provide thatsight line, how big the wheelchair space is, what an accessible route is, andall of that. And to tell you to associate one companion seat with it and lineit up shoulder to shoulder.

“And we think all of that is a pretty big job.”

Examining sight lines

Sight lines have been the most contentious of any ADA issue touchingstadiums and arenas.

The Justice Department says it began looking into the work ofsports architecture firm Ellerbe Becket in August 1994 after receivingcomplaints that the Rose Garden, home to the Portland Trail Blazers, did notmeet ADA standards because, among a litany of other things, its wheelchairlocations did not provide sight lines over standing spectators.

Soon after, a similar complaint came from disabled patrons atthe Fleet Center in Boston, another building that Ellerbe designed. When theinvestigators began checking the rest of Ellerbe’s work, they diagnosed similarproblems in arenas it designed in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Buffalo. Disabledrights groups filed civil lawsuits involving Ellerbe-designed arenas inWashington, D.C., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

In October 1996, the government went after the firm with acase it filed in federal court in Minneapolis, where Ellerbe is headquartered.In it, the Justice Department bundled all the arenas, charging Ellerbe Becketwith engaging in “a pattern or practice of illegal discrimination.”

Ellerbe eventually settled the overarching case by agreeing todesign with standing spectators in mind in the future. The Rose Garden and MCICenter cases each yielded decisions that went largely against the architect andbuilding operators. From those have come many of the clarifications thatunderpin what today is considered accessible design.

“I’ll go to my grave knowing that what we were doing in ourbuildings was without precedent in terms of the extent of accommodation,” saidBill Crockett, national director of sports for Ellerbe Becket, who joined thefirm in 1990, the same year Congress passed the ADA. “They were without peer.We really thought we were giving our clients options … not representingourselves as experts in the ADA, because it was untested, but as experts inarena design trying to come up with ways to approach it.

“We do think that now we’re experts, with the benefit of 10years of learning and exploration.”

The Justice Department points to the Olympic Stadium Ellerbedesigned for use in 1996 in Atlanta (now Turner Field) as a model ofaccessibility.

To be fair, many besides Ellerbe went into the ADA erathinking that the old way of looking at sight lines was fine. McGuire argued asmuch on behalf of the Fleet Center when he consulted on the project during itsconstruction.

Then he went to an event there.

“All you saw was the Levi patch of the person standing infront of you,” McGuire said. “Once the building opened up, I realized there wasa problem. I understand that. I get it. I was wrong.”

While most agree that the courts have resolved the issue ofblocked views, architects say some complex seating issues remain. The ADAAGrequires that wheelchairs be distributed at various angles around the seatingbowl and at various prices. Those are easily understood. But it also requiresthat they be distributed from bottom to top.

“What is the correct number of rows?” asked Stockwell, the HKSarchitect. “I wish somebody [at the Justice Department] could tell me, becauseit’s going to kick back to me when it goes to the courts.”

Roether, the ADA expert at HOK, said vertical distribution isamong the more daunting aspects of accessible design, in part because doingmore of it can put wheelchairs in places that put them at risk in an emergency,such as a fire.

But attorneys say that argument hasn’t always prevailed.

Facilities contend that they are trying to do the right thing as the ADA continues to evolve.

Years ago, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authoritywould not sell wheelchair spots on the floor for boxing, wrestling or concertsheld at its arena, saying it could not safely get wheelchairs out of thebuilding if there were a fire.

Jim Weisman, a noted ADA attorney who won a landmark caseagainst the transit authority in New York, challenged them on it, and otherissues. When they argued the case in front of a judge, Weisman facetiouslyasked whether they should move the hearing from the fifth-floor courtroom,where those in wheelchairs might be in danger.

“This is the risk assumed by people with a disability everyday,” Weisman said. “You have to show probability of harm, not possibility ofharm, in order to make that kind of discrimination lawful.”

The fact that the discussion has moved from whetherwheelchairs could be segregated into ghettos behind the basket, a hockey goal,a baseball corner or a football end zone, as they were for decades, into thefiner points debated by architects today speaks to a noteworthy evolution.

“We’re all trying to do the right thing,” Lamberth said.“Nobody is trying to get around or get by it.”

When San Diego Padres owner John Moores took a visitor on a tour of PetcoPark as it was set to open three years ago, he pointed out an elevator thatarchitects had to install next to a few steps that led to the home bullpen,because the ADA requires an accessible path of travel to all team areas.

“I hope we don’t sign anybody who needs that,” Moores joked.

They haven’t. But the ADA requires that the disabled be able to movefreely throughout a venue, including onto the field and into dugouts. Alllocker rooms and clubhouses also must be accessible, with showers designed toaccommodate disabilities. The Padres knew when they asked HOK for a smalldugout next to the bullpen that they’d have to add an elevator.

“There are many things in ADA law that are very clear,” said ErikJudson, who oversaw the development of Petco for the Padres and now is aprincipal with Moores’ recently launched sports development firm, JMI Sports.“And that is one that is very clear. It was a no-brainer.”

Because the ADA also guarantees equal access to employment, buildings mustbe designed so that almost everyone can get almost everywhere, including lockerrooms and dugouts. While a wheelchair or other mobility limitation wouldpreclude someone from playing in the NBA, it wouldn’t necessarily keep themfrom working in a front office, on a medical staff, or as a newspaper reporteror an electrician or at any number of jobs that might take them beyond theseating bowl.

“It used to be there was the public, and then there werepeople who can’t walk,” Weisman said. “Now, the public includes people whocan’t walk, or who have low vision, or who are hearing impaired. Designers ofstadiums are getting it. They have a much more inclusive view of who theaudience is.”

All about equity

From behind the haze of a complex law that is taking decadesto sort out, every so often someone says something that clarifies and cleanses.

Mazz, the accessibility specialist with the government boardthat writes the guidelines, boils the contradictions out of the debate byfocusing on the law’s intent.

“It’s all about equity,” Mazz said. “It’s about giving folkswith disabilities essentially the same wonderful — or lousy — opportunitiesthat you give everybody else.”

When considering colleges as a high school student in a smalltown north of West Point, McGuire chose Boston University. It had a reputationas an accessible place. Even there, McGuire found hurdles.

When he visited friends in an older dorm, McGuire enteredthrough the back door and rode a freight elevator that carried fruits andvegetables to the cafeteria. He dreaded the days when he would arrive after theonions.

“Still, that was access to me, and that was OK,” McGuire said.“Pre-ADA, you didn’t have very high expectations. But it’s different now. Thesekids growing up now are going to have a whole different set of expectations.All you have to do is go to their schools and see them being treated like allthe other kids to realize that, when they grow up, they’re not going to be likeI was.

“They’re not going to ride the freight elevator any more.”

What makes a stadium or arena accessible?

At least 1 percent of a building’s seating must be wheelchair locations: open, level spaces with smooth, slip-resistant surfaces. That’s 180 spaces in an 18,000-seat arena, or 650 spaces in a 65,000-seat stadium.

At least 1 percent of all fixed seats in all seating areas must be aisle seats with no armrest, so that those with limited mobility who don’t use a wheelchair can get in and out.

Each wheelchair space must be next to a fixed seat or folding chair for a companion. If other seats in the section are padded, the folding chair should be padded.

Wheelchair accessible seats can’t be isolated from other spectators or friends and family. Wheelchair locations must be offered in all areas, including suites, and offer a range of prices and views.

Wheelchair users must be able to move easily from the parking lot to their seats, and then to concession stands, rest rooms, exits and all other public areas. That includes the field in a stadium, the court or ice in an arena, locker rooms and dugouts.

Wheelchair users are entitled to lines of sight comparable to those of other spectators — even when those in front of them stand.

At least half of all entrances must be wheelchair accessible. Turnstiles must include a gate.

All rest rooms must be wheelchair accessible, including those in suites.

All concession stands, souvenir stands, restaurants, clubs and team shops must be wheelchair accessible, with counters and cash registers that wheelchair users can reach and clear paths that they can navigate.

For those who are hard of hearing, a facility must provide receivers that amplify PA announcements. Facilities are supposed to provide those for 4 percent of all seats. That’s 2,600 receivers in a 65,000-seat stadium.

Source: SportsBusiness Journal research