When it was announced that the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials would be held in Lucas Oil Stadium, one question came to mind: can a swim meet pull the same attendance numbers as an NFL game?
The answer is an unsurprising no, but with some caveats.
First, the entire stadium capacity of 70,000 was not used. Only around 30,000 seats per session were made available based on the layout of the competition and warm-up pools.
Second, the action was spread over nine days, with a morning prelims and evening session on all but the final day. Even for such a high caliber meet, it was unrealistic to expect sold out crowds for prelims sessions.
Still, the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium averaged 55.9% capacity across all 17 sessions, around 16,777 spectators per session. That number exceeds the 15,000 maximum capacity of the CHI Health Center in Omaha, which had been the site of U.S. Trials since 2008.
Attendance by Session – U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming
| Day | Prelims | Finals |
| 15 June | 16009 | 20689 |
| 16 June | 18342 | 18161 |
| 17 June | 13940 | 16571 |
| 18 June | 14439 | 15476 |
| 19 June | 17414 | 22209 |
| 20 June | 15080 | 17742 |
| 21 June | 13983 | 18444 |
| 22 June | 15119 | 18808 |
| 23 June | - | 12776 |
It’s worth noting that the first finals session broke a record for attendance at a swim meet, a record that was later surpassed just four days later on June 19th. Both corresponded to the appearance of some of Team USA’s most recognizable stars, namely Katie Ledecky who won the 400 free and 1500 free on each day respectively.
However, attendance only exceeded 19,000 for those two sessions, as the third highest number of spectators was 18,808 for finals on June 22. It’s worth noting that both days that broke 20,000 spectators included sponsored attendees from the National Parks and Recreation Championship on June 15 and a large number of Lilly employees, a major corporate sponsor of Team USA, on June 19.
In total, attendance was just over a quarter-million across all nine days, coming in at 285,202. SwimSwam reached out to USA Swimming for clarification on if these numbers were determined by ticket sales or scans upon entry, but did not receive a response.
As a comparison point, we also took a look at attendance of other popular Olympic sports’ Trials events.
U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials were held from June 21 through June 30 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The site has hosted every USATF Trials event since 2008, and also hosted three between 1972 and 1980.
After a two year renovation from 2018 to 2020, Hayward Field’s spectator capacity was expanded to 12,650, with the ability to nearly double that capacity with temporary seating.
The USATF Olympic Trials average 11,926 spectators per day, with the majority of events taking place in the evening session. Assuming the permanent seating mark as the capacity, that means Track and Field averaged 94.2% capacity across eight days, with peak attendance coming on the final day of competition.
Attendance by Session – U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track and Field
*June 25 and 26 were Practice Days with no competition.
| Day | Attendance |
| 21 June | 11227 |
| 22 June | 11852 |
| 23 June | 12108 |
| 24 June | 12180 |
| 27 June | 11851 |
| 28 June | 11775 |
| 29 June | 12174 |
| 30 June | 12243 |
Finally, Gymnastics had a much shorter event, only spanning four days between June 27 to June 30. Trials were held at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which has a listed capacity of 20,000.
It was reported that tickets for June 28 and June 30 sold out, which were the days the women competed. Similar to Swimming Trials, this could be a matter of star power as Simone Biles made her third Olympic team with the top floor, vault, and all-around scores.
Using the Target Center capacity of 20,000, Gymnastics Trials averaged 72.3% capacity.
Attendance by Session – U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Gymnastics
| Day | Attendance |
| 27 June | 11258 |
| 28 June | 16153 |
| 29 June | 14180 |
| 30 June | 16300 |
In conclusion, it’s unclear if the U.S. Swimming Trials can be judged as a success by numbers alone. While by pure volume it exceeded other similarly popular Olympic sports, at only 55.9% average capacity across all sessions the venue may have been a little too big for the event.
As a final point of comparison, there were only 36 athletes competing at Gymnastics Trials, compared to 956 athletes competing in swimming. Even with (theoretically) over 25 times more families to fill the stands, fans of USAG still managed to exceed nearly every swimming prelims session, as well the finals session on June 18.
It’s not a perfect comparison – Swimming Trials is over double the length of Gymnastics – but it might be something to keep in mind as USA Swimming prepares for a Trials event for a home Olympics in 2028.
Fantastic stats
I was in the 600’s for most session. The energy up there was INSANE!!!! Packed house most nights for sure. Lower sections by the pool? Ghost town. It looked quite sad. The TV didn’t get to see how electric we were up there. Most swim fans are just everyday, hard working people who don’t have the funds to budget ~200-300 dollars a DAY on “good” seats.
Based on what I saw on TV and social media, it was a great show. It looked like Indianapolis was a great host city and stepped it up a notch from Omaha. That said, Omaha sold out almost every night in 2016 at around 15,000 seats. The nightly average in Indy was around 17,000. And yeah, they broke a record in attendance a couple nights, but to me, that should just happen by default given the stadium capacity was more than twice that of Omaha. Because of that, I’m just not sure USA Swimming had much to crow about in terms of attendance.
I guess the question is, is the marginal gain in attendance worth the added cost of… Read more »
Maybe not.
As pretty much shared, the average attendance would have filled an nba stadium to capacity. It also would have been a better viewing experience since the upper levels are closer to the pool. However… I don’t know of an nba stadium that would take the gamble that they wouldn’t make the nba finals or the nhl playoffs. That and not allowing any other performances to take place for a month or so inside of the arena would be a huge loss of revenue. Maybe it’s possible if they condensed the time needed to build the pool. The other question is where would the warm up pool go… so in theory if they did this it could go to a bigger… Read more »
The NBA stadium conversation is a total non-starter. It’s not even a gamble…it’s just something contractually they can’t do.
Indy did great in hosting – unsurprisingly, because that’s what that city does. Nobody really knows the economics of it, because USA Swimming keeps everything very close to their chests. We know that the number that was floating around among insiders as make or break was 20k. Not clear if that was “peak 20k” or “average 20k.”
In my opinion, the atmosphere in-venue was not quite as good as Omaha, but it was better than expected. I’d say it was good, not great. One of the issues was that the VIP seats on the one side of the pool blocked the… Read more »
It was quite the show, for a football or basketball game. I’d been to Omaha for a couple of trials and found Omaha, as opposed to Indy, classier and more focused on the swimmers, parents and a celebration of their accomplishments. The crowds were appreciative and I am sure the food, drink and memorabilia concessions did well. However, having been to every session of the 2024 trials announcements of attendance numbers assured me that Pinocchio was in the house.
Do an article contrasting the Olympic and Paralympic Trials swim meets. The USA has a long way to go to fulfill its purported tagline: One for All.
USA swimming priced various sections very oddly. Some sections were 100% sold out, yet others, priced the same, were empty.
There should have been a much greater premium for best seats, and significant discounts for less desirable seats. Surprised local clubs weren’t given 100’s of tickets each to fill the place.
Its fair to say this was a success that could have been done better
I thought so too. There definitely should have been some $20 seats. I guess their thought process was “if there are no $20 seats, then everyone will be forced to spend at least $60 on seats.” I think they didn’t value “filling the place because it would be cool” as much as economic models to maximize revenue.
Swimming pricing models always have to account for the captive audience, that peoples’ price sensitivity is much lower because of moral/emotional obligations to go watch so-and-so teammate or family member compete.
If the same setup was held in another city other than Indianapolis, the attendance could be higher. There was not much to do in Indy – sadly a very boring city!
Gotta say that I was skeptical and went in already having Indy fatigue after World Trials and NCAAs, BUT they did an amazing job as a host town and other than being 10 degrees cooler I’m not sure it could have been better. The city and its residents should made the swim community feel welcome. Everything was very close and convenient and there were good-enough restaurants and nice walking/running trails along the river. With prelims at 11 and finals at 8, what are you really planning to do during the day if you are attending most of the sessions? And with it being writhing a day’s drive of almost 50% of America it was easy to get to and get… Read more »
I would guess those numbers were based on ticket sales rather than scans. The final night looked practically empty – v doubtful 12k in the stands. Looked closer to 1200.