6 Greatest Sporting Experiences

As any sports fan can attest to, very little beats the feeling of watching live sport at the ground. The best sports in the world create an unbeatable atmosphere, and combined with top class action can raise your heartbeat, make you pray to any deity, and put you on an emotional rollercoaster better than any drug.

Such is the rush that a live sporting event offers spectators, despite them having next to no effect on the events unfolding in front of them.

While there is a buzz about watching your local team or the team that you support, some events are on a whole different level when it comes to crowds and atmosphere.

These are not only the most sought after sporting events in the world for fans to watch, but generally, create a buzz and excitement inside the arena. The event itself, in many cases, transcends sport and becomes something else entirely.

While some of these sports cater more to domestic fan tastes, others are almost universally consumed, but either way, all the events on this list have attendances ranging from tens of thousands screaming fans to over 100,000 spectators live at the ground creating an intense atmosphere and occasionally a wall of noise that can be heard in the surrounding neighborhoods of the ground.

All of these events also display different cultures of their individual sports, much like different sports around the world. While some sports are played in hushed library-like silence and a biting sense of anticipation, others are played in a cacophony of noise, either co-ordinated or chaotic, to create a turbulent atmosphere that sweeps everyone in the stadium together as one.

In any case, the list of events is not just on the bucket list of any and all sports fans but the atmosphere alone is worth watching even if you aren't usually a fan of the sport in question.

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#6 WrestleMania

Once a year, the WWE gathers for the biggest event of the Wrestling year, constantly trying to outdo the events of the year before. In a list of the top 10 attended shows in the WWE, WrestleMania is responsible for nine of those, with the only exception being Summerslam 1992.

The event has drawn over 75,000 people for the last seven years, with fans coming from all around the world specifically for WrestleMania week.

The company seems to have acknowledged this phenomenon by catering the week of events towards people that are specifically traveling to the show, and the crowd at the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania is generally considering amongst the more hardcore fans as they tend to be fans that have traveled for the show and booked tickets for the week, as opposed to just going to a single PPV or live event.

As a result of the combination between WWE's biggest event and the legions of traveling fans, WrestleMania, and the week of festivities around it is a sight to see. When WrestleMania was in New Orleans in 2018, fans took over the streets in the weekend leading up to the event. "Rusev Day", "Too Sweet", and Elias chants could be heard up and down Bourbon Street in the days leading up to WrestleMania, creating an incredible buzz in the city for wrestling fans and strange looks from people who didn't know about the event.

#5 Olympic Games

Since the days of Ancient Greece, the Olympic Games has always been a place where the best in the world come to compete against each other in a variety of different events. While the Modern Olympic games may attract a wider variety of sports and patrons, there is no doubting that in certain sports an Olympic gold medal is highly sought after.

While every Olympic games sport has it's own individual World Championships outside the Olympics, an Olympic gold medal is usually the highest honor these athletes can receive and that level of competition is often reflected in the crowd.

Coupled with the fact that the Olympics only come once every four years and is almost a completely new experience that is flavored by the host city.

With all that in mind, the Olympic Games creates an unmatchable atmosphere and takes over a city for the duration with crowds able to watch top athletes from track and field, swimming, gymnastics, and more.

# 4AFL Grand Final

The Australian Football League may be the most niche sporting event on this list, but the Grand Final is Australia's version of the Superbowl.

Coming at the end of a 23-round season and a 4-week final series, the AFL Grand Final is one of the biggest sporting spectacles in Australia and regularly attracts more than 100,000 people with an additional 2.5-3 million watching the game on TV in Australia.

The AFL has over 100 years of history, and with each season culminating in the grand final regularly providing an annual spectacle that caps off the season. Great Grand Finals in history include Carlton coming back from 44 points down at the 1970 Grand Final against Collingwood, or Sydney breaking a 72-year premiership drought in 2005 against West Coast.

With the winner of the game gaining all the glory and hoisting the premiership cup after a long season basically wipes away records of the wins and losses of the season prior. All that matters is winning the big game at the end of the season.

#3 Indian Premier League Final

As a sport, there are many spectacular fixtures in a cricket season, the Ashes contested between Australia and England, any India and Pakistan match, and both the T20 and ODI World Cups.

However, no cricket spectacle or match will come close to the thrill and atmosphere that comes from an IPL match.

For those not familiar with cricket, the IPL is the biggest cricket league in the world and based in the cricketing mad country of India, it gets an average attendance of over 30,000 fans in the stadium, all seemingly making as much noise as humanly possible.

While other cricketing countries, such as England, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all have their own domestic cricketing leagues, the noise and atmosphere at the games pale in comparison to the Indian Premier League.

Not only does the Indian Premier League have the best Indian T20 players in the world it also attracts the best players from other countries and is the richest and most expensive cricket league in the world.

#2 NFL Superbowl

The SuperBowl is possibly one of the biggest spectacles in the sporting world, especially considering the league is predominantly in one country and is barely played outside of the United States of America.

The National Football League's final match of the year regularly attracts a crowd of over 70,000 people and occasionally attracts over 100,000 people. On top of the attendance records, 100,000,000 Americans watch the game on TV, with even non-sports fans attending Superbowl parties to enjoy the famous half-time ads.

The NFL SuperBowl doesn't just provide an intense atmosphere for the game. The half time show performances are usually done by some of the most popular singers and bands of the year, regularly attracting big names like Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Maroon 5. In terms of all-round spectacles, the NFL Superbowl is unmatched by anything anywhere else in the world.

The Superbowl also usually takes place between the two best teams for that season, as the finals are structured which give an advantage to teams that do the best during the regular season.

#1 Fifa World Cup

The FIFA World Cup is the premier international football competition and takes the top 32 countries in the world, finishing in a won off final with the last two countries remaining. Football, or Soccer, is the most popular sport in roughly 95 countries.

To this extent, the FIFA World Cup Final is watched by Football fans the world over and as a result over 3 and a half billion people watched the 2018 World Cup Final between France and Croatia.

The World Cup, held every 4 years, regularly attracts the best players from around the world without the limitations that can affect club level football, such as financial investment and Fifa Fairplay regulations as players predominantly play for countries and are only able to switch in very rare exceptions.

This also means that the FIFA World Cup is a time when star players remain at the one country for their entire senior career, which is generally unheard of in professional sports these days.

This, combined with the patriotism that emerges for the biggest international tournament in the world creates a great atmosphere which makes the World Cup Final such an incredible sporting spectacle.