Stadium

A stadium (plural stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.

Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stade at Olympia, where the word "stadium" originated.

In modern times, a stadium is officially a stadium when at least 50% of the actual capacity is an actual building, like concrete stands or seats. If the majority of the capacity is formed by grasshills, the sports venue is not officially considered a stadium.

Most of the stadiums with a capacity of at least 10,000 are used for association football, or soccer, by far the most popular sport in the world. Other popular spectator sports include American football, baseball, ice hockey, basketball, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, Australian football, Gaelic football, rugby sevens, field lacrosse, arena football, box lacrosse, futsal, minifootball, bandy, athletics, volleyball, handball, hurling, gymnastics, ski jumping, motorsports (formula 1, NASCAR, IndyCar, motorcycle racing, Monster Jam), wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts, sumo, netball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, cycling, ice skating, golf, swimming, field hockey, Kabaddi, bullfighting, box lacrosse, international rules football, equestrianism, polo, horse racing and weightlifting. A large amount of large sports venues are also used for concerts.

"Stadium" is the Latin form of the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet. As feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion = 600 ft (180 m), in a given historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller.

The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length — about 185 m (607 ft) - but instead of being defined in feet was defined using the Roman standard passus to be a distance of 125 passūs (double-paces).

...
Wikipedia