Well that's what happens when you put fads and pop culture references in TV shows. They can become pretty dated pretty quick.
I mean, imagine if one of the shows were to praise someone like, oh idk Elon musk.... Oh wait...
My headcannon is that like many things over the years, sports will come and go, and this is the new "retro thing that become ironically popular, then became legitimately popular again"
And the engineers just happened to discover an unused space that perfectly fit those dimensions for the lanes, and DEFINITELY didn't make the lanes the very first consideration and design the ship around them....
Full disclosure, I've not seen discovery. Didn't want to pay for paramount+ and now that I know more about the general plot, I'm not interested. Same thing for most of the new shows.