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U.S. Sports Stadium Revenue, by League
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Sports stadiums are a crucial source of revenue for professional sports leagues, generating more than $17 billion over the 2022-2023 season.
In fact, the cost of gate receipts across the big four leagues have jumped much higher than core inflation since 2007, with the sharpest rise seen over last year. One part of the reason is the rising costs of suites and luxury boxes, which can run as high as $45,000 per game for teams like the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. During Super Bowl LVIII, the cost of suites peaked at $2.5 million.
This graphic shows the sports stadium revenues of each major U.S. league, based on data from Sportico.
How Much Do Sports Stadiums Make in Revenue?
Below, we show sports stadium revenue for American professional sports leagues. Revenue for the NFL and MLB is as of 2022, revenue for the NBA and NHL is for the 2022-2023 season, and revenue for the MLS is as of 2023.
| Rank | League | Total Stadium Revenues | Share of League's TotalRevenue | Total # of Games Playedin a Regular Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MLB | $4.4B | 41% | 2,430 |
| 2 | NFL | $4.2B | 23% | 272 |
| 3 | NBA | $3.8B | 34% | 1,230 |
| 4 | NHL | $3.8B | 56% | 1,312 |
| 5 | MLS | $1.2B | 57% | 986 |
The MLB generated the highest overall stadium revenue, reaching $4.4 billion, largely due to the sheer volume of 2,430 total games in a season.
Falling closely behind is the NFL, with the vast majority of games selling out, and an average seating capacity of 70,000. Notably, the NFL’s SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, is the most expensive stadium worldwide, with a construction cost of $5.5 billion.
While the MLS’s stadium revenues are much smaller than the big four, it makes up the highest share of total revenue, at 57%—more than double the NFL. Over the last eight years, attendance has been steadily growing, reaching an estimated 10.9 million attendees in 2023. Not only that, total revenues spiked by 27% in 2023 driven largely by superstar Lionel Messi joining Inter Miami.
Similarly, the NHL derives substantial revenues from stadiums since its media and broadcast deals are not as valuable as other leagues like the NFL and NBA.
Stadium Revenue Controversy
Building new sports stadiums can boost a team’s value significantly, but it doesn’t come without pushback.
The major point of contention is the role of public financing supporting the project. For instance, between 1992 and 2008, taxpayers funded 68% of stadium construction costs, but this dropped significantly to 31% between 2009 to 2020. One part of the reason is that stadiums transfer wealth from taxpayers to wealthy team owners, who reap most of the benefit from their development.
While teams proposing a new stadium tout their economic benefits, 130 individual studies found that new stadiums provided negligible improvement in job creation and income levels. Research found that sports-related spending merely replaced existing consumer spending, rather than adding to it. Making matters worse, public funding for stadiums has jumped by threefold in real terms over the last three decades as stadiums become increasingly lavish.
Yet despite these findings, subsidies still play a major role in stadium financing across many jurisdictions, and this could likely continue into the future as a wave of stadiums are anticipated to be slated for construction. In 2023, roughly 12 stadium projects were announced or already underway for MLB and NFL franchises alone.
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