Featured image credit: Antonio Vivace on Unsplash
The Paris 2024 Olympics set a new attendance record for basketball as more than one million fans turned out for games across the men’s and women’s tournaments.
A total of 1,078,319 fans attended basketball games during Paris 2024, which beat the previous Olympic record of 1,068,032. That was set during the Atlanta Games in 1996, when an expanded 30,000-capacity SuperDome was used.
There were 52 basketball games played during Paris 2024 – 40 fewer than in Atlanta. Preliminary round games were held at Lille’s Stade Pierre-Mauroy, before Paris’ Accor Arena hosted from the quarter-final stage onwards.
The average attendance for this year’s Olympics was 20,737 for men’s basketball games and 19,763 for women’s. The tournaments concluded at the weekend, with the USA beating France in the final of both competitions.
Stade Pierre-Mauroy primarily serves as the home of Ligue 1 football club LOSC Lille and the stadium was converted into a temporary basketball facility for the Games. The stadium welcomed 876,686 fans across its 36 games.
Lille’s 18 men’s games attracted 466,053 fans at an average of 25,983 per game, which represented 94.6% of the facility’s capacity of 27,360. The 18 women’s games at Stade Pierre-Mauroy attracted 410,633 fans at an average of 22,813 per game.
Lille also set a new record attendance for a women’s basketball game in Europe, with host nation France’s game against Australia watched by 27,193 fans.
Accor Arena, known as Bercy Arena during the Games, has a seated capacity of 13,000 and every game at the venue was played with a minimum attendance of between 11,852 and 12,454. A total of 201,633 fans attended games at the arena.
The seven days of action at the 3×3 basketball tournament were also sold out at the Place de la Concorde. The 3×3 total attendance was 72,000, with 4,000 fans at each session.
The next Olympics will take place in Los Angeles in 2028. Basketball games during the 2028 Games will be held at Intuit Dome, the new home of the LA Clippers NBA team, which opens this week.
Share this