The largest stadiums in the USA
Michigan Stadium is the largest stadium in the United States at 107,601, and the shape of this list is the story: the biggest American stadiums are college grounds, not professional ones. The largest NFL venue here sits below eight university stadiums built for teams that play about six home games a year.
| Stadium | City | Sport | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan Stadium | Ann Arbor | American football | 107,601 |
| Beaver Stadium | University Park | American football | 106,572 |
| Ohio Stadium | Columbus | American football | 102,780 |
| Kyle Field | College Station | American football | 102,733 |
| Tiger Stadium | Baton Rouge | American football | 102,231 |
| Neyland Stadium | Knoxville | American football | 101,915 |
| Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium | Austin | American football | 100,119 |
| Bryant–Denny Stadium | Tuscaloosa | American football | 100,077 |
| MetLife Stadium | East Rutherford | American football | 82,500 |
| AT&T Stadium | Arlington | American football | 80,000 |
Sources
Dallas Cowboys, accepted · LSU Athletics, accepted · MetLife Stadium, accepted · Ohio State Athletics, accepted · Penn State Athletics, accepted · Texas A&M Athletics, accepted · University of Alabama Athletics, accepted · University of Michigan Athletics, accepted · University of Tennessee Athletics, accepted · University of Texas Athletics, accepted
Why college stadiums dominate
Michigan Stadium at 107,601 and Beaver Stadium at 106,572 both belong to universities. So do Ohio Stadium, Kyle Field, Tiger Stadium, Neyland Stadium, Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium and Bryant–Denny Stadium. These are not new buildings chasing a record; most were laid out in the 1920s and 1930s and have been extended in bowls and decks ever since, on land the university already owned, funded by alumni who were not calculating a return per seat.
A professional owner builds differently. An NFL franchise plays eight regular-season home games and monetises hospitality boxes, sightlines and broadcast rather than raw volume, so there is no commercial reason to pour concrete for seats that fill a handful of times a year. That is why MetLife Stadium and AT&T Stadium, the two professional grounds on this list, sit below the college giants despite being far more recent and far more expensive.
Which is the biggest NFL stadium?
MetLife Stadium, at 82,500. It is shared by two franchises, which is itself unusual, and it is the largest NFL venue by permanent capacity even though it would rank outside the world's top twenty stadiums overall. AT&T Stadium in Arlington is often described as larger, and for a specific event it can be: its published capacity understates what the venue admits once standing-room areas are opened for a one-off. Those are two different measurements, and this list ranks on the permanent figure the venue publishes rather than on an expanded event maximum.
Reading American capacities carefully
Two habits make US figures harder to compare than European ones. College stadiums frequently publish an "official capacity" that is a licensed seating number while routinely announcing attendances above it, because standing areas, student sections and press and hospitality positions are counted differently from seats. And several venues publish an expanded configuration for a championship game or a concert that is not the number the stadium operates at week to week.
This site records what a publisher measured alongside what they counted, which is why some rows here carry a note about the concept behind the figure. Where a venue states a seat count rather than a licensed capacity, or gives a figure for an expanded configuration, the row says so rather than flattening everything into one column of apparently comparable numbers.
How these figures are sourced
Every capacity on this page comes from the stadium, the team or the owner — not from an aggregator or an encyclopedia. Where a venue publishes no official figure, or publishes two that disagree, the row shows what each source says with its publisher attached rather than picking the convenient one. Full attribution sits beneath the table.