285,202 Attendees Across 17 Sessions of U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials

By Laura Rosado on SwimSwam

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.

Across six days, the 2024 Australian Olympic Trials totaled 16,700 fans at a 4,300-spectator venue.

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.

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