List of the World's Highest Sports Stadium Attendance
What is the highest attendance at a sporting event? Millions of people attend the Tour de France each year, but is hard to quantify exactly how many people line the roads to watch. Our extensive list of large sporting crowds is mostly composed of horse racing and auto racing tracks.
a crowded Perth Stadium for a football match, Western AustraliaBelow we have listed the largest spectator crowds for the classic enclosed stadiums, not including horse and car racing venues such as Indianapolis Motor Speedway which can be expanded to cater to up to 400,000 spectators.
When sports are played in an enclosed stadium, spectator numbers are much easier to quantify. The current largest sports stadium in the world is India's Narendra Modi Stadium with a capacity of 132,000. However, no event has been held at that stadium at capacity, the largest crowd so far is 101,566 for the 2022 cricket IPL Final.
This list of largest stadium attendance figures is very different from the list of largest stadium capacity. Most of the high attendance figures below are from the past when there was a large component of standing room, and many more people could fit in the same space. The actual spectator numbers in the table can vary from different sources, as sometimes there are no official records, entry numbers were not always accurately kept, and many spectators entered without tickets.
The Top-10 Highest Stadium Attendance
Maracana stadium in Brazil had a record attendance of 199,854 for the Brazil vs. Uruguay match in the World Cup Final on the 16th June, 1950. This is the biggest attendance at a sporting event held in an enclosed stadium. The crowd number is an unofficial number - the official crowd (people who paid for tickets) that day was 173,850. Due to its large capacity, Maracana Stadium has many more reported sporting events with large attendance figures.
| Rank | Highest attendance | Venue | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 199,854 | Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. | Brazil vs. Uruguay World Cup Final on the 16th June, 1950. The crowd number is unofficial - the official crowd (people who paid tickets) that day was 173,850. |
| 2 | 190,000 | Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea | The largest attended event took place at the stadium on April 28th and 29th, 1995. The pay-per-view event promoted as "Collision in Korea" was the largest event ever in the history of professional wrestling. The two days recorded an attendance of 150,000 and 190,000. |
| 3 | 150,000 | Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, Jakarta, Indonesia | A match between Persib Bandung and PSMS Medan, the 1985 Perserikatan Final. |
| 4 | 149,547 | Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland | Football match between Scotland v England on 17th April 1937 Sources say that there were more, considering there were a lot of people in the stadium without tickets. |
| 5 | 138,032 | Estádio do Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil | A football match between Corinthians and Ponte Preta, 9 October 1977. |
| 6 | 135,000 | Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal | Football game between Benfica and Porto, 4 January 1987. |
| 7 | 132,834 | Mineirão, Belo Horizonte, Brazil | Campeonato Mineiro final football match between Cruzeiro and Villa Nova in 1997. The paying attendance was 74,857, with 56,618 women and children who entered for free. |
| 8 | 132,247 | Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico | Boxing match between Julio César Chávez and Greg Haugen, 20 February 1993 |
| 9 | 131,781 | Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan (Salt Lake Stadium), Kolkata, India | 1997 Football Federation Cup Semi-Final between arch-rivals East Bengal and Mohun Bagan holds the record for the largest audience for an Indian football match. The match, played on 13th July 1997. |
| 10 | 129,690 | Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid, Spain | Football match between Real Madrid and A.C. Milan, 19 April 1956. |
| 11 | 128,000 | Azadi Stadium, Tehran, Iran | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifier Iran v Australia, 22 November 1997 |
| 12 | 126,047 | Wembley Stadium (original), Wembley, London, UK | 1923 FA Cup final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. |
| 13 | 121,919 | Crystal Palace, London, England | FA Cup Final Aston Villa versus Sunderland in 1913 |
| 14 | 121,696 | Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia | VFL Grand Final between Carlton and Collingwood on 26 September 1970. |
| 16 | 120,480 | Cairo International Stadium, Cairo, Egypt | 1986 African Cup of Nations final |
| 19 | 120,000 | Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois, United States | Estimated attendance at the Notre Dame v. USC Trojans November 26, 1927. |
| 20 | 120,000 | Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain | 1986 European Cup Quarter Final between Barcelona and Juventus. |
| 21 | 118,567 | Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow, Scotland | Old Firm v Celtic, 2 January 1939 |
| 22 | 118,496 | Castelão, Fortaleza, Brazil | Brazil v Uruguay football match, August 27, 1980 |
Notes:
- The spectator figures in the above table were correct as of November 2023.
- A few stadium attendance figures from the original list on Wikipedia have not been found elsewhere and have not been included. For example, San Siro Stadium in Milan Italy is listed on some sources as having an attendance of 125,000, but no details have been found of such an event.
Related Pages
- Top-10 Largest Stadiums in the World
- World's Largest Sporting Crowds
- The Top-10 largest sporting stadiums in the USA
- List of Stadium Wonders of the World
- All Sporting Stadiums
- Stadium Designs of the Future
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