The Biggest Stadiums in the World by Capacity
Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is the biggest stadium in the world, holding 132,000 — and it is a cricket ground, not a football one. Eight of the ten largest are American college football venues, which is why a global ranking looks nothing like a European one. Every figure below comes from a stadium, team, owner or operator.
The biggest stadiums in the world, ranked
Global rankings disagree because most of them copy each other. Every row below is traced to a stadium, team, owner or operator statement, and says so where an owner gives an approximation or two figures on one page. The Melbourne Cricket Club is the model: it publishes 95,000 seats plus about 5,000 standing rather than a bare total, which is the difference between a figure you can check and one you cannot. The biggest football stadium in the world is a separate question: FNB Stadium leads on its headline figure, Estadio Banorte on the sorted one.
| Stadium | City | Country | Sport | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Narendra Modi Stadium | Ahmedabad | India | Cricket | 132,000 |
| Michigan Stadium | Ann Arbor | United States | American football | 107,601 |
| Beaver Stadium | University Park | United States | American football | 106,572 |
| Ohio Stadium | Columbus | United States | American football | 102,780 |
| Kyle Field | College Station | United States | American football | 102,733 |
| Tiger Stadium | Baton Rouge | United States | American football | 102,231 |
| Neyland Stadium | Knoxville | United States | American football | 101,915 |
| Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium | Austin | United States | American football | 100,119 |
| Bryant–Denny Stadium | Tuscaloosa | United States | American football | 100,077 |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground | Melbourne | Australia | Cricket and Australian rules football | 100,024 |
| Estadio Banorte | Mexico City | Mexico | Football | 87,000 |
| Bukit Jalil National Stadium | Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia | Football | 85,500 |
| FNB Stadium | Johannesburg | South Africa | Football | 94,736 or 90,000 or 84,490 Sources differ |
| MetLife Stadium | East Rutherford | United States | American football | 82,500 |
| AT&T Stadium | Arlington | United States | American football | 80,000 |
| Maracanã | Rio de Janeiro | Brazil | Football | 78,838 |
| Gelora Bung Karno Stadium | Jakarta | Indonesia | Football | 77,193 |
Capacities this page will not assert
- FNB Stadium
- Three figures from two official sources. The City of Johannesburg publishes a headline capacity and, on the same page, a lower maximum for the 2010 World Cup after press and VIP reservations; the naming-rights partner states a third figure. City of Johannesburg, headline capacity states 94,736. FNB, the naming-rights partner states 90,000. City of Johannesburg states 84,490 (2010 World Cup maximum, after press and VIP allocations).
Sources
- Board of Control for Cricket in India — accepted Stated as: capacity, stated as 1,32,000 in Indian numbering
- City of Johannesburg — accepted
- Dallas Cowboys — accepted Stated as: seating — the club states expandability up to 100,000, which it does not describe as seating
- Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex — accepted Stated as: seats, from the venue's booking-data field — the same page's descriptive text says approximately 78,000 flip-up single seats
- Government of Mexico City — accepted Stated as: seats — the city states capacity has been adjusted to 87,000 following renovation for the 2026 World Cup
- LSU Athletics — accepted Stated as: capacity — LSU's dedicated stadium page says 102,321 while its facilities index says 102,231, a 90-seat self-conflict; the lower figure is used
- Melbourne Cricket Club — accepted Stated as: total capacity — 95,000 seats plus approximately 5,000 standing-room spaces, as the operator states explicitly
- MetLife Stadium — accepted Stated as: seating capacity for football and soccer — the venue states 50,000 for most concerts
- Ohio State Athletics — accepted Stated as: present seating capacity — the source says 'present' explicitly
- Penn State Athletics — accepted Stated as: capacity — the stadium is under revitalisation and Penn State says it will maintain more than 100,000 throughout construction without giving a revised temporary figure
- Perbadanan Stadium Malaysia — accepted Stated as: seating capacity
- Riotur, Rio de Janeiro official tourism body — accepted Stated as: total capacity following the stadium's major reform — the source does not expressly label it current
- Texas A&M Athletics — accepted Stated as: expanded seating capacity, following redevelopment
- University of Alabama Athletics — accepted Stated as: official capacity — the same page calls it the current seating capacity and dates it 2020 to present
- University of Michigan Athletics — accepted Stated as: official capacity
- University of Tennessee Athletics — accepted Stated as: capacity — for the 2025 spring game during construction the university stated approximately 45,000, a temporary event configuration
- University of Texas Athletics — accepted Stated as: current capacity — the department elsewhere describes it loosely as over 100,000
Which is the biggest cricket stadium?
Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is the biggest cricket stadium in the world at 132,000, rebuilt on the site of the old Motera ground and reopened in 2020. It is roughly 32,000 larger than the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which held the record for most of the previous century. Cricket grounds take first and tenth here, a fact almost entirely missing from stadium sites built around European football: the sport's biggest venues sit in India and Australia.
The biggest NFL and college football stadiums
American football fills the top of this list in a way no other sport does. Michigan Stadium holds 107,601 and Beaver Stadium 106,572, and both belong to universities rather than professional franchises. Seven of the world's twelve largest venues are American college grounds, built for 1920s crowds and never shrunk. The full American ranking, including the professional venues, is covered on the largest stadiums in the USA page rather than duplicated here.
Which is the biggest NFL stadium?
MetLife Stadium is the biggest NFL stadium at 82,500, which places it outside the world's top twenty and below nine college grounds. No NFL venue has ever been built to college scale. Franchises optimise for hospitality boxes, sightlines and television revenue rather than raw volume, and a professional owner paying for the concrete has no reason to build seats that fill six times a year.
Isn't the North Korean stadium the biggest?
Probably not, but nobody outside North Korea can show it. Rungrado 1st of May is published at 150,000 or 114,000 depending on the list, and neither figure traces to the stadium, its team, its owner or its operator. Borg El Arab in Alexandria is absent for the same reason: the repeated 86,000 has no official source. Salt Lake in Kolkata has two official figures, forty years and 35,000 seats apart, neither of them current and exact.
Why the biggest stadiums are not the busiest
Capacity measures the roof, not the crowd. Michigan Stadium fills roughly seven Saturdays a season, and the Melbourne Cricket Ground sells out only for a Grand Final or a Boxing Day Test. A ranking by seats rewards venues that sit empty for most of the calendar, which is the most misleading thing about every list of this kind, this one included. Anyone searching for the largest stadium in the world gets the same answer from every list; asking which is the busiest gets a completely different one.
Which stadium has the highest average attendance?
Signal Iduna Park has led global average attendance for over a decade at roughly 81,000 a match, despite ranking outside the world's top twenty by capacity. Among the largest venues only Michigan Stadium and the Melbourne Cricket Ground come close on a per-event basis, and neither fills more than a handful of times a year. Rank a list by annual spectators rather than seats and the order changes almost completely.