Also check out this follow-up analysis of stadium attendance.
The 2016 college football championship game between Clemson and Alabama was held at University of Phoenix Stadium, where the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals play. Interestingly, this NFL (ironic, given its name) stadium is considerably smaller than the home stadiums of either Clemson or Alabama. In fact every NFL stadium is considerably smaller than the largest college stadiums. Outside of North Korea, the 8 largest stadiums in the world are college football stadiums, and the 15 largest college football stadiums are larger than any NFL stadium.
Americans are obsessed with college football, but how much is too much? Today most athletic departments are subsidized by their schools. Public universities increased their annual football spending by $1.8 billion between 2009-2013 while racking up huge debts to finance stadiums with little chance of profit. This interactive map shows each NCAA Division I college football team’s home stadium: collectively they seat 8.5 million people. Click any point for details about stadium capacity and year built: