Top 10 Stadiums in the United States
American stadium culture is unusual in the global landscape: NFL grounds, college football bowls, MLB ballparks and MLS soccer-specific stadiums all occupy the same theme but follow completely different design conventions. The list below mixes the four codes deliberately, because no honest survey of US stadiums can ignore the 107,000-seat college bowls or the privately financed billion-dollar NFL palaces. Every venue described is on the map.
1. Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor
Capacity: 107,601. The Big House — home of the Michigan Wolverines — is the largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. Opened in 1927, it has been continuously expanded since, with the current capacity established in a 2010 renovation that added two enclosed luxury suite levels above the original bowl. The stadium is sunk below ground level: from the parking lots outside, only the upper portion of the stands is visible. Michigan football's home attendance has exceeded 100,000 for every regular season game since 1975 — a streak unmatched anywhere in American sport.
2. SoFi Stadium, Inglewood
Capacity: 70,240 (expandable to over 100,000 for special events). Opened in 2020 for the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, SoFi is the most expensive stadium ever built — final cost estimates exceed $5 billion. The HKS-designed building sits beneath a translucent ETFE roof canopy that covers the entire footprint, and the centrepiece is the Infinity Screen: a 70,000-square-foot dual-sided video board hanging in the middle of the bowl, the largest of its kind in any stadium. SoFi hosted Super Bowl LVI in 2022 and will host the 2028 Olympics opening ceremony.
3. MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford
Capacity: 82,500. Home to both the New York Giants and the New York Jets — the only NFL venue shared by two teams. Opened in 2010 at a cost of $1.6 billion, MetLife will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, the first World Cup final played in the United States. The horizontal facade alternates colour with each team's home game (blue for Giants, green for Jets) using exterior LED panels — a system inspired by Munich's Allianz Arena.
4. Lambeau Field, Green Bay
Capacity: 81,441. Home to the Green Bay Packers since 1957 and the oldest continuously operating NFL stadium. Lambeau is the only NFL ground owned by its community rather than a private owner — the Packers are publicly owned, a unique structure protected by NFL constitutional grandfathering. Renovations have expanded capacity progressively without losing the original bowl character. Winter games at Lambeau, including the 1967 Ice Bowl played at minus-13 Fahrenheit, are part of NFL mythology.
5. Ohio Stadium, Columbus
Capacity: 102,780. The Horseshoe — home of the Ohio State Buckeyes — is the third-largest stadium in the United States and a National Historic Landmark. Opened in 1922 with a distinctive open-end horseshoe shape, the stadium was enclosed during renovations completed in 2001 but retains its name. Ohio State home games regularly draw the largest crowds in college football alongside Michigan, and the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry game (The Game) is American sport's most consistently attended single annual fixture.
6. Beaver Stadium, University Park
Capacity: 106,572. Home of the Penn State Nittany Lions and the second-largest stadium in the United States behind Michigan. Beaver Stadium's White Out — when the entire crowd wears white for a designated night game — is one of college football's signature visual events. The stadium is undergoing a major renovation due for completion in 2027, reducing capacity slightly while adding hospitality space and modern infrastructure.
7. AT&T Stadium, Arlington
Capacity: 80,000 (expandable to 105,000 for events). Home of the Dallas Cowboys since 2009, designed by HKS at a cost of approximately $1.3 billion. The retractable roof, retractable end-zone doors, and 60-yard-long centre-hung video board defined a new standard for NFL stadium spectacle. The stadium has hosted Super Bowl XLV, the NBA All-Star Game, college football championships, and major concerts. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones financed the project privately with minimal public contribution — a contrast to many NFL stadium deals.
8. Yankee Stadium, Bronx
Capacity: 46,537 for baseball. The current Yankee Stadium opened in 2009 across the street from the original 1923 ground (now demolished). The new building reproduces several architectural features of the original — the limestone exterior, the frieze along the upper deck — while delivering modern hospitality and luxury infrastructure. The New York Yankees' 27 World Series titles make them the most successful franchise in North American sport. The stadium has also hosted New York City FC's MLS home matches since 2015, with a retrofit football pitch overlay.
9. Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta
Capacity: 71,000 for NFL (expandable to 83,000). The Atlanta Falcons' (NFL) and Atlanta United's (MLS) shared home opened in 2017 and is defined by its retractable oculus roof — eight overlapping steel petals that open and close like a camera aperture. The stadium's distinctive design features also include a 360-degree video halo board around the inside of the roofline and a public-facing commitment to "fan-first" concession pricing that became influential across American sport. Atlanta United regularly draws over 70,000 — the highest MLS attendance in the league's history.
10. Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas
Capacity: 65,000 (expandable to 71,835). The Las Vegas Raiders' home opened in 2020 after the franchise relocated from Oakland. The HNTB-designed building has a fixed roof, a natural grass field that rolls out of the building on a tray system for sunlight when not in use, and a black-on-black exterior that fits the Raiders' branding. Allegiant has hosted Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 and is among the most aggressive recent examples of a US city paying significant public money (around $750 million in tax-backed financing) to attract an NFL franchise.
NFL versus college versus MLB
The size hierarchy of American stadiums is the inverse of what visitors from elsewhere often assume. The largest stadiums are college football venues, not professional ones — Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State and Texas A&M all exceed 100,000 capacity, while no NFL stadium does (the 105,000 figure for AT&T is an event configuration, not regular NFL capacity). MLB ballparks are smaller still, typically in the 35,000–50,000 range, and prioritise sightline quality over capacity. MLS stadiums, the youngest category, are typically purpose-built at 20,000–30,000 capacity following the European football-specific model.
The 2026 World Cup and the US stadium map
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, with the United States hosting 78 of the 104 matches including the final at MetLife. Eleven US cities are confirmed hosts: Atlanta, Boston (Foxborough), Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco (Levi's Stadium) and Seattle. Several of those venues — particularly Levi's and SoFi — will be using temporary natural grass pitches over their existing surfaces.
Visiting US stadiums
Game-day logistics in the United States typically involve substantial parking lots and tailgating rather than the pre-match pub culture of European football. Public transit access is the exception, not the norm — Yankee Stadium (subway), SoFi (rail spur planned), and Allianz Field in Minneapolis (light rail) are the unusual cases. All venues listed are visible on the map with surrounding infrastructure context.