Loudest Stadiums in the World
It's commonly thought that the level at which sound begins to be bad for hearing is around 130 to 135 decibels. So, what would we call someone who willingly pays good money to expose themselves to that type of noise for an extended period of time?
They're called sports fans, everybody, and the noisier it gets for them, the better it means their team is usually doing.
The loudest stadiums in the world aren't contained to one country or one sport or one type of sports fan. They stretch the entire globe, and they're guaranteed to bust up your eardrums whenever there's a home game. Here's a look at the loudest stadiums from every corner of the Earth.
15. Minute Maid Park
Location: Houston, Texas
Opened: 2000
Capacity: 41,168
Main tenant: Houston Astros
Bottom line: I'm always loathed to give the Houston Astros credit for anything — specifically two World Series championships in the last six years — but you cannot deny the absolute frenzy Minute Maid Park gets worked into when they play games there. It's insane, and no list of the loudest stadiums in the world would be complete without including this one.
It's worth pointing out Minute Maid Park replaced one of the most famous stadiums of all time in the Astrodome, which I would also put toward the top of any list of the greatest stadiums of all time.
RELATED: Loudest College Football Stadiums
14. Hampden Park
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Opened: 1903
Capacity: 51,866
Main tenant: Scotland National Football Team
Bottom line: If you had a time machine and could travel back to the single loudest game in the history of Hampden Park, you'd have to go to 1937 and cop tickets to a game between Scotland and England when a staggering 149,415 fans showed up to the pitch. Our guess is that it probably bested the 115 decibels Hampden Park hit during a match in 2018.
Now home primarily to the Scotland National Team, Hampden Park was home to Queen's Park F.C. since the stadium opened in 1903 — the same club played at a nearby venue also called Hampden Park dating all the way back to 1873.
13. Allen Fieldhouse
Location: Lawrence, Kansas
Opened: 1955
Capacity: 16,300
Main tenant: University of Kansas men's basketball
Bottom line: This is one of those additions to the list that I can justify from both an objective and subjective perspective. Objectively because Allen Fieldhouse set the record for the loudest crowd at an indoor sporting event in 2017 when the fans hit 130.4 decibels. And subjectively from watching games there for over 30 years and what it sounds like in my living room.
"The Phog" is such an intimidating place to play that Kansas won every men's basketball regular-season championship from 2005 to 2018 … followed by 2020, 2022 and 2023, including a second NCAA championship under longtime head coach Bill Self in 2022. It's the only basketball arena to make this list — and for good reason.
12. Citizens Bank Park
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Opened: 2004
Capacity: 42,792
Main tenant: Philadelphia Phillies
Bottom line: Call me an old head all you want. I put two baseball stadiums on the list, and one of them had to be Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
It's obvious you're not going to get the consistently loud noise levels at baseball stadiums throughout the year — 162 games is just too much — but when baseball heads to the postseason, you aren't going to find many sporting events in the world that can match the intensity of those crowds.
When it comes to intensity, no fan base has that particular market more cornered than in Philadelphia. The only thing I can think of that would get in the way of making noise at a Phillies game would be all of the food a fan has to eat over the course of nine innings. Think cheesesteaks chased with Tastykakes and washed down with some Yuenglings.
11. Williams-Brice Stadium
Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Opened: 1934
Capacity: 77,559
Main tenant: University of South Carolina football
Bottom line: Don't sleep on Williams-Brice Stadium — when South Carolina surprisingly got good at the end of the 2022 regular season, we saw what visiting college football players have known for generations. This place is as jacked as anywhere in college football when the Gamecocks are on point.
Old-school football fans will recognize Williams-Brice Stadium as the home stadium of the ESU Wolves in the seminal 1993 college football film, "The Program," from its unique, circular stairwells in the corners of the stadium.
Did we mention the stadium has actually been known to sway on gamedays? Former South Carolina player Joe Morrison once famously said "If it ain't swayin', we ain't playin'," after a big win. Touche, my friend.
10. U.S. Bank Stadium
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Opened: 2016
Capacity: 66,860
Main tenant: Minnesota Vikings
Bottom line: Glass-framed U.S. Bank Stadium is one of the most beautiful stadiums I've ever seen. It opened in 2016 as the new home of the Minnesota Vikings to replace the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and its legacy of skin-burning, ACL-snapping astroturf.
Built for just over $1 billion, U.S. Bank Stadium hosted a Super Bowl less than two years after it opened and has been home to some of the more raucous crowds in recent NFL memories. It was never louder than during "The Minneapolis Miracle" on Jan. 14, 2018, when Stefon Diggs caught a 61-yard touchdown pass from Case Keenum as time expired in an NFC divisional playoff game against the New Orleans Saints.
This place rocks.
RELATED: These Are the Loudest NFL Stadiums
9. Celtic Park
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Opened: 1892
Capacity: 60,411
Main tenant: Celtic F.C.
Bottom line: The largest football stadium in Scotland also goes by Paradise and has been home to Celtic FC since 1892. And you better believe it has one of the most rabid fanbases of any professional sports team in the world.
Word to the wise — getting to a game at Celtic Park probably shouldn't be on your bucket list. Its fans are super aggressive and can be super offensive. How bad does it get? Sky Sports had to agree to turn off individual microphones and mute out some crowd noise after fans were less-than-sensitive to the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
If you insist on going, try to get tickets to a match against Rangers FC, which is one of the fiercest pro sports rivalries in the entire world.
8. Nef Stadium
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Opened: 2011
Capacity: 52,652
Main tenant: Galatasaray
Bottom line: Top-flight Turkish team Galatasaray plays its home matches at Nef Stadium, which only has a capacity of just over 52,000. But it once hit decibel levels equivalent to an NFL football game at a 2011 game against rival Fenerbahce.
How loud and how nasty does it get at Nef Stadium? When Manchester United came to play a match, the stadium was covered in banners that read "Welcome to Hell" — these fans are a true menace, and I love it.
7. Caesars Superdome
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Opened: 1975
Capacity: 76,468
Main tenant: New Orleans Saints
Bottom line: Originally known as the Louisiana Superdome — most people just call it the Superdome — this stadium has hosted seven Super Bowls and will host an eighth in 2025. Not bad for a team that hasn't really seen sustained success until the last 15 years — right around when they added Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees.
You cannot overestimate the advantage the crowd at the Superdome gives the Saints and the ensuing insanity that comes when almost 80,000 fans pour into the stadium after hours of boozing on Bourbon Street. Enter at your own risk.
6. Anfield
Location: Liverpool, England
Opened: 1884
Capacity: 53,394
Main tenant: Liverpool F.C.
Bottom line: For those of you who think your favorite stadium in the U.S. is well-known and famous, we see you, and we raise you Liverpool FC's Anfield, where just more than 50,000 fans feel like double that.
The first eight years Anfield was open, it was actually home to a rival club, Everton, before Liverpool FC took over as its main tenant. Nothing will get the blood moving (and probably the tears) when you go to Anfield more than when the fans sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" with the players following a win. It's essentially the European version of when fans sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park.
5. Neyland Stadium
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
Opened: 1921
Capacity: 101,915
Main tenant: University of Tennessee football
Bottom line: College football fans got to see the sheer might of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium for the first time in a long time in 2022 when the Vols took down the University of Alabama.
Along with being loud, Neyland Stadium is still among the Top 10 largest stadiums in the world, but it's not as big as it used to be. The stadium was downsized from a max capacity of 104,079 to its current capacity of 101,915 before the 2022 season.
4. Lumen Field
Location: Seattle, Washington
Opened: 2002
Capacity: 68,740
Main tenant: Seattle Seahawks
Bottom line: You need to look at just one moment in the history of the Seattle Seahawks home stadium to understand exactly how loud it can get — Marshawn Lynch's 67-yard touchdown run in the 2010 NFC Wild Card Playoffs against the New Orleans Saints in which he broke nine tackles. It's more commonly known as The Beast Quake because the moment of the run registered on regional seismograph charts.
That wasn't the only time Lumen Field got rocking on a seismographic level — fans there once set the Guinness World Record at 136.6 decibels in a 29-3 win over the San Francisco 49ers in 2013 and again in 2014 when they hit 137.6 decibels.
3. Tiger Stadium
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Opened: 1924
Capacity: 102,321
Main tenant: LSU football
Bottom line: LSU's home stadium only seated 12,000 when it opened its doors to the public in 1924 — a world away from today's approximately 102,000 fans who show up to sweat it out in the stands with their team on any given Saturday.
Your trip to one of the largest, loudest stadiums in the entire world won't be complete until you make a stop at Fred's either before or after the game — it's the Baton Rouge home for whenever Barstool Sports comes to town. Which is always a good time.
No moment in Tiger Stadium history gives us more chills when we think about it than when Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow came out for his Senior Night introduction with his nameplate changed to "Burreaux" for his adopted home state.
2. Westfalenstadion
Location: Dortmund, North Rhinde-Westphalia, Germany
Opened: 1974
Capacity: 81,365
Main tenant: Borussia Dortmund
Bottom line: There are actually three names for this stadium. If you're talking to the man or woman on the street, you're going to call it Westfalenstadion — its common name — but its official name is Signal Iduna Park, and for UEFA competitions, it goes by BVB Stadion Dortmund.
For having such an identity crisis with its name, the stadium itself leaves nothing to the imagination as far as noise. You're getting college football-level sound when over 80,000 fans pack into the home of elite-level soccer club Borussia Dortmund. That's amplified by the fact that fans are situated almost uncomfortably close to the field and the roof covers 80 percent of the stands, creating a bounceback for noise.
1. Arrowhead Stadium
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Capacity: 76,416
Opened: 1972
Main tenant: Kansas City Chiefs
Bottom line: Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs were the loudest in not just the NFL but the entire world long before their team found itself in the middle of the greatest run in franchise history after winning its second Super Bowl in four years in 2022.
In 2014, Arrowhead Stadium set the Guinness World Record for stadium noise in a game against the New England Patriots when they hit an eardrum-rattling 142.2 decibels in a 41-14 win. That's louder than when a jet airplane takes off.