[Phriggin' Ogre]

anywho, I was originally going to say Los Angeles... but after reading up on London, its extremely hard to compete with that city! They pretty much have world class stadiums in all but a couple sports.


I'd also like to add that some latin american mega cities have a very impressive array of venues, especially Mexico city and Buenos Aires.

 

[mvictory]

Saying that nobody cares about a sport outside the U.S. isn't bashing? I guess since you're an Australian agreeing with a Brit, it makes you right? I think its funny how you disgregard basketball (North America, some Latin American countries, China, Europe), Baseball (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Latin America, North America), football (the most profitable league in the world, huge in the US, Canada, and growing in many parts of Mexico).



And after showing some rather impressive stats, and disregard them simply because its not big in Europe?


What a retarded thing to say.... the most ignorant comment in this whole thread, is ironically ranting about ignorance.



Seriously, soccer is an amazing global sport, but the few trolls here seriously need to shut the **** up and stay on topic.

If you read my posts you would see I said Basketball is popular internationally. No other American sport is followed through much of the World. Baseball has a few areas where it is played yes but in most areas it is not popular and has nowhere near the following of Football, tennis, Rugby, Olympic sports (e.g. Athlettics) and many others and American football is not followed at all outside the countrys you mentioned.

And again if you read my post you would see that I said not all Americans are ignorant but there is a large part of your population live inside a bubble where they don't know of anything outside of there borders. I remember on my first day in America a couple of years ago a woman asked me how long it took to drive from Australia. On the other hand you also have some of the brightest minds in the world. I am by no means bashing your country or been ignorant.

 

[SpicyMcHaggis]

London. No one comes even close.

 

[dom]

There's a bit of argy-bargey going on this thread!

It's fair to say that LA, London and Melbourne are the main cities for stadia in the world.

The question is, which city has the highest number of saleable sports seats for games, total gross attendence per annum and highest theoretical attendence?

Now I'd wager that LA and Melbourne might be suprise wins on absolute capacity as you've got the Rosebowl in LA and MCC in Melbourne which are absolutely massive.

However, the Premiership is a huge draw and its almost impossible to get tickets for the games in London so maybe overall attendence in London is the highest?

In terms of sports stadia honorable regards must go out to the San Siro in Milan, Camp Nou in Barca and the Bernabaeu in Madrid.

It is one of my life's ambitions to watch a AC Milan-Inter Milan football game at the San Siro!!!! Truly one of the homes of football.

 

[Ganis]

Ganis - nice photos of LA (and suburbs) stadiums and sports arenas. Here's London:


Wembley:

Twickenham:

London Olympic Stadium:

Emirates:

Stamford Bridge:

White Hart Lane:

Upton Park:

The Valley:

Craven Cottage:

Selhurst Park:

Loftus Road:

The New Den:

Vicarage Road:

Brisbane Road:

Griffin Park:

Lords Cricket Ground:

The Oval Cricket Ground:

Wimbledon Centre Court:

Wimbledon No. 1 Court:

Twickenham Stoop:

Crystal Palace Athletics stadium:

The O2 Arena:

Wembley Arena:

Earls Court Arena:

Olympia Arena:

Epsom Downs Racecourse:

Ascot Racecourse:

Kempton Park Racecourse:

Sandown Park Racecourse:

And coming soon...the new White Hart Lane:

That's just about it, I think! There are some smaller football (soccer) and rugby stadiums in London that I haven't bothered to include. Likewise, a number of football stadiums very close to London (certainly closer to central London than the Auto Club Speedway is to downtown LA!).

And I haven't included the various other Olympic venues that have yet to be built (especially the Aquatics Centre and the Velodrome).

F Me... London wins.....

 

[kaqueme]

Great work .. really informative .. and thanks a lot for sharing ..

 

[flierfy]

The question is, which city has the highest number of saleable sports seats for games, total gross attendence per annum and highest theoretical attendence?

(More than) 8'140'776 watched football in London in the 2008/09 season. The figure includes all football game I can think of within Greater London from England internationals to AFC Wimbledon. I left out the lower league sides as they won't have much to add. Neither does the number include friendlies of club sides.

 

[isaidso]

If you read my posts you would see I said Basketball is popular internationally. No other American sport is followed through much of the World. Baseball has a few areas where it is played yes but in most areas it is not popular and has nowhere near the following of Football, tennis, Rugby, Olympic sports (e.g. Athlettics) and many others and American football is not followed at all outside the countrys you mentioned.

First of all, do your homework. Those aren't US sports, all of them are north American sports. Baseball has spread far beyond north America and is popular on 3 continents. Baseball has widespread appeal. Hockey is mostly north America and Europe. Of the big 4 north American sports, football has made the least impact globally. Canadian football is played only in Canada, and the US version almost exclusively in the US, but even that is changing. The US version (what you call American football) is gaining a significant following in Mexico and many small pockets around the world.

 

[Basincreek]

I live in the same state as you and I've heard of near every football ground listed and a couple others, too. This "arrogantly ignorant American" act has to stop around here. You claiming not to know Wembley does not degrade its stature in the world. Acknowledge that we live in a bubble and take that into consideration here. Earth and the United States are not synonymous.

I never said I hadn't heard of Wembley. I said I never hear about it in the media. Thanks to this forum I have heard about the major stadia in London.

My statement was as much an indictment of the regionalist nature of sports coverage as anything else. I was pointing out how, in the USA, you can't escape knowing about places like the Rose Bowl while the rest of the world might never hear of it and how, conversely, famous stadiums in London get little to no exposure here.

And I wasn't trying to degrade the stature of anyone. Personally I have no opinion on who is the "stadium capital of the world" I was just pointing out that some of these stadiums (in all the cities mentioned) are not as well known as some people assume.

 

[AdidasGazelle]

Personally I have no opinion on who is the "stadium capital of the world" I was just pointing out that some of these stadiums (in all the cities mentioned) are not as well known as some people assume.

I think you are confused.

This thread is about trying to find out which city is the stadium capital of the world. Whether you, I or anyone else has heard of the stadiums is of no consequence. The only fact that matters is whether or not these stadia exist. The argument for London has been put forward and until someone else can prove otherwise then it seems that London is indeed the daddy.

Oh and 'opinions' don't really count in this instance.

:cheers:

 

[Luke80]

League with largest total season attendence in world: MLB 79,502,524 (and its not even close, the NBA comes in 2nd with just over 21 million)
League with highest average attendence: NFL: 68,240
NCAA FBS total season attendence: 37,483,158 (17 teams average over 80,000 per game and 5 teams will average over 100,000 per game this year)


No Soccer league in the world even comes close to those numbers.

The MLB plays a massive amount of games so don't try to fool people into believing that.

There are very few NFL and college home games so demand is bound to be higher. The only impressive statistic is that people pay to watch college sports at all. That's something people in this country would find very hard to understand.

 

[bigbossman]

^^college sport is no different to youth sport over here, people pay to see the youth cup and the world youth cup, egypt got 80,000 in all their games to see u20s. I'd imagine if all premier league players went through BUSA then college sport would be bigger here. Case in point Baseball developed like football over here and the college game is minor.... Pro Basketball and American football developed after the college game and what's more they are mutually beneficial.

Also look at the size of their universities they are huge compared to ours.

 

[soup or man]

So hosting an olymipic games once or twice makes a stadium more worthy than one that hosts worlds 3 largest sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NCAA)on a daily/weekly basis plus all the championship games on a yearly bases?

Absoutely.

 

[Phriggin' Ogre]

Absoutely.

I think thats very subjective. Not every Olympic stadium is an all time great, and not every American stadium lacks history.

 

[Phriggin' Ogre]

The MLB plays a massive amount of games so don't try to fool people into believing that.

There are very few NFL and college home games so demand is bound to be higher. The only impressive statistic is that people pay to watch college sports at all. That's something people in this country would find very hard to understand.

Do you even know the numbers? If you remove 80 percent of the games, it would still have more attendance than whatever it is you're thinking of. Not that I'm defending the sport, baseball is boring as hell...

but some of you Europeans need to get off this "if we don't like it, nobody likes it" mentallity, its really damn annoying sometimes and makes your typical snobby American look open minded.

 

[bigbossman]

^^ It's clear that you don't understand that European people aren't saying that, (the fact that I mentioned about watching Florida state Seminoles would tell you I personally like american football). We're just saying you guys are using statistical selectivity to big up your leagues to be bigger than they are.

In weava's reposnse he bigged up one league for it's total attendance and another for it's average. Clearly using whatever stat supports his argument best to "prove" his point.

Population and Games played matter a lot, in relative terms these aren't that impressive. The most impressive is probably without a doubt AFL (australia) even though it is closed it is taking it's supporter base from around half the population of Australia, the support of dutch football is also extremely impressive.

 

[AdidasGazelle]

but some of you Europeans need to get off this "if we don't like it, nobody likes it" mentallity, its really damn annoying sometimes and makes your typical snobby American look open minded.

Don't worry, I get your irony.

Either that or you're on a WUM.

 

[Phriggin' Ogre]

^^ no point in that reply other than to bash the U.S. You're a ****.

1. Total attendance, come on now... you are counting people more than once
2. Each of the 30 teams plays 81 home games.

so? Still has 4 times the attendance of any other league... still impressive that they have so many fans willing to pay, right? Wait, its not soccer, so its not.... sorry I forgot. :lol: I hate the MLB, and I KNOW thats impressive. Averaging 32,000 spectators for 2,400 games isn't impressive? Then most leagues in Europe aren't either.

1. total attendnace, come on now...
2. Each of the 30 teams plays 41 home games

So? They're playing in Arenas with 20 to 25 percent the capacity of a European stadium.

32 professional teams in a country of 300+ million. Only one of those teams plays in a metro of less than a million.

They play 8 home games a season

Theres actually around 120 professional sports teams in the country(not even counting the MLS or college teams), theres more than the NFl, you know.... and its still competing with college sports, which draw more than 3-4 European leagues alone...

around 6 home games a season. (some less, one or two more)
State universities have massive alumni and they are the pro teams in many cities/states

I mean the only reason Nebraska has sold out for 40 odd years is because that's all nebraska has got...

Again... more bashing... what about those pissant little towns in Europe where people have nothing to do but watch soccer?

Yes because the most populated FOOTBALL country is only a developing nation and has a population 2/3 yours.

The next has less than half your population.

Don't even try and compare to England, Spain, Germany, Italy, the netherlands etc.

Those numbers you posted are not impressive at all

Considering the numbers for EACH LEAGUE... yes, thats very, very impressive. Does Europe have 4 world-class caliber leagues? Besides the champions league nothing comes close.... as you said, its not comparable. Even though the NCAA could compete with any other league in the world (as I do recall, I've shown you in a past thread)



So how about you get off this sports bashing horse you're on and stay on topic... you've done this on about 5 threads I've created alone... and now others? You really need to stop that. You're always trying to "PROVE" that Americans lack sports passion... youre always trying to "PROVE" that we don't support our leagues... just shut up already. Its not hard to understand that its not just Americans that watch basketball or baseball.

 

[SpicyMcHaggis]

Considering the numbers for EACH LEAGUE... yes, thats very, very impressive. Does Europe have 4 world-class caliber leagues? Besides the champions league nothing comes close.... as you said, its not comparable.

Oh boy... you have absolutely no idea how football works but you call others ignorant?

 

[Phriggin' Ogre]

Oh boy... you have absolutely no idea how football works but you call others ignorant?

Whats big in Europe may not always be big everywhere else in the world. Maybe you can prove me wrong? How many leagues can compete with an American one? I'm just talking about the leagues, so don't put any twist. Its funny that out of my whole post, you call me ignorant based on one little thing I said concerning European football. XD


but hey, I don't like being called ignorant, so enlighten me. I'm not really here to bash Europe or its sports...