Talk:List of sporting venues with a highest attendance of 100,000 or more

Events that don't have private venues
Is it worth including for reference recorded/estimated attendances for events that don't take place in stadia/circuits/similar. For example street racing circuits, or boat races on rivers. The Boat Race springs to mind, usually about 250,000 people watch from the river bank. 86.21.227.237 (talk) 23:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I would say no. While they are sporting venues, they are largely temporary.  The ones on this list are permanent structures.  Plus, with some events (New York Marathon, for instance), it is difficult to even approximate the number of spectators.  If we could find reliable estimates for these sorts of events, another list could started instead of using this one.  Some of the events on this list (Indy 500, FA Cup final, etc) would probably be added to that list.  Patken4 (talk) 01:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

More Venues
The record attendance at Odsal Stadium Bradford England is 102569 for the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final Replay 1954.

The cross-country course at Badminton Park Gloucestershire England attracts a paid attendance of over 200,000 on the Saturday of the horse trials every year. I can't find the record attendance but it is over 250,000.

The cross-country course at Burghley Park Lincolnshire England also attracts a paid attendance of over 100,000 on the Saturday every year. Again I can't find the record attendance.

The horse racing course at Epsom Downs Surrey England achieved attendances of up to 400,000 shortly after WWII on Derby Day though many had free admission. I can't find attendances for Town Moor Doncaster and the Rowley Mile Course Newmarket for the same period but I suspect attendances may have exceeded 100,000

The record attendance for an Olympic event is 120,000 at the Holmenkollen in Oslo Norway in 1952

I wonder about what capacity the Panathinaikos Stadium in Athens Greece has had during its 2500 year existance. There was a huge crowd for the ending of the men's marathon at the 1997 world athletics championship and the venue was used for the same purpose (and for other sports) at the 2004 Olympics.

I can't find a record attendance for the Waterloo Cup at Altcar Liverpool England during coursing's peak of popularity in the 1880s

The Croke Park Dublin attendance record is 90,556 but was it full?

Donnington Park Leicestershire has a very recent record attendence of slightly over 88,000 but there must be a maximum attendance figure in its premises licence. What is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.237.57 (talk) 00:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Of those, I don't know about Bughley Park or Badminton Park since they are not permanent structures. I'll add in  the Holmenkollen ski jump, Epsom Downs, and Odsal Stadium since I can find sources for them.  If you find sources for the others that they have had an attendance of 100,000 or greater, I'll add them as well.  Patken4 (talk) 04:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand why you have not included street venues. e.g. marathons, University Boat Race and one could add the Tour de France and the like but there is no fundamental difference between Badminton Park and a horse or motor race course. The features of the course although not the precise route between them are constant from year to year and it is a closed arena with admission money paid for access. Here is a reference for the a submission from the sport's governing body to Parliament on its regular attendance. http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/hunting/inquiry/evidence/bhta.htm

I have now found the Burghley Saturday attendance record and it is 80000 although 140000 attend the entire event so it does not fall to be included.

In relation to horse racing look at Mike Huggins Horseracing and the British 1919-1939 page 138 (available but not pasteable from Google Books). You will see the references to Aintree, Epsom and Doncaster. I do not think these are the record figures because horse racing attendances peaked after WWII but they merit inclusion. The Chester figure is misleading because it is the aggregate of a three day meeting.

I do not know where you have got the current capacity of Epsom from. This is the press release for attendance for the 2008 Derby. The problem with The Hill is that Epsom charges for vehicles (and traditionally open top buses park on The Hill) not for people and so attendance has to be estimated. http://www.epsomderby.co.uk/news/Epsom6928.ink

I hope this helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.237.57 (talk) 10:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think aggregate numbers should could, so Burghley and Chester shouldn't be included. This should primarily be one day records.  I now see your point about Badminton Park, however is the 200,000 figure on the website you gave for one day or all three?  I would like something more concrete about it being a one day record.  I'll add Doncaster and move Aintree up.  Patken4 (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Badminton seem to be be very coy about attendance figures. I have found references to record attendances in 2002 and very good attendances in 2007 but without numbers. On various sites figures for the total event are given between 150-250000. I suspect that in practice their attendance figures are heavily weather and royalty dependent and they don't want exhibitors to be aware of that variability. I finally found a reference courtesy of Google Books: Campbell The Badminton Tradition pub 1978 p162 "in 1978, on cross-country day alone, the attendance was in the region of 200,000 spectators" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.237.57 (talk) 17:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've added Badminton Park to the list. Thanks for the information and work to find it!  Patken4 (talk) 12:39, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Le Mans
The Le Mans 24 hour race regularly attracts crowds of more than 250,000, or at least that's what http://www.lemans.org/24heuresdumans/pages/historique_gb.html maintains. Should the Circuit de la Sarthe be on the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Larrington (talk • contribs) 15:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's already listed under Circuit Bugatti at 100,000. The problem with it is that is part public course/part private course.  Circuit Bugatti is really where the grandstands are.  If others agree, it can be moved up to 250,000.  Patken4 (talk) 00:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Event column
Many of the highest attendances listed are from a particular event (for instance, the almost-200,000 crowd in Maracanã was on July 16th 1950 World Cup final match, Uruguay 2, Brazil 1). Shouldn't this information be provided when we have it available?Gvogas (talk) 17:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Attendance x Capacity
This list is supposed to be by highest attendances (there are others by capacity), and the closed venues are listed by capacity. I know it is hard to tell what was the attendance of the Circus Maximus, but this may cause confusion. The capacity of the Strahov Stadium was 220,000, but the highest attendance in football history is Maracanã's 199,854. That's why I think the list should always focus on attendance.Gvogas (talk) 17:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

This whole article is almost entirely unsourced
This article claims that all of these stadiums have, and one stage, hosted a crowd in excess of 100,000. Although none of the numbers given cite a specific events, game, date, etc, and almost all have no source.

It starts right with number one on the list! IMS capacity is nowhere near 400,000, and there is no official source or record that has ever been able to verify this urban legend that "back in the old days" it used to get crowds anywhere near this. Even the IMS wiki page (which shouldn't be used as a source) has capacity at 257,000. Unfortunately, someone has added a line that is has in the past drawn 400,000, however the citation does not back that up.

The same issues plague the rest of the list. Virtually no sources, and no, other wikipedia articles can't be the source. User submitted sites like worldstadiums.com also aren't reliable, as they aren't 'official' numbers, and simply come from user submissions in most cases... often from wikipedia in the first place! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.151.126.216 (talk) 05:53, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposed
All proposed stadiums should be removed because we don't make guess. WP:SPECULATION --Falcadore (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Change is needed
Way to many mistakes this entire page possibly has to be remade to apply with wikipedian standards. 1. most of the sporting venues have wrong capcity of have higher capacity and reality they all can hold more or less people 2. The template of this page has to be changed. see ya — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jezzy-lam (talk • contribs) 10:25, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Request for Deletion
This page is almost completely unreferenced and contains an incredibly concerning amount of errors and inaccuracies. The easiest way would be to delete and re-create the page. The information in the table is inconsistent with the linked articles (for example Mangueirão is said to have had 120,000 attendance on this page but it is only cited to have had 65,000) and elsewhere online and many venues have been left out, rendering the point of this page useless. Tom1819 (talk) 00:33, 2 April 2020 (UTC)