There’s nothing quite like heading to support your local team on game day, whether you’re a fan of football, baseball, basketball, hockey, or even all four!
Unfortunately, getting to the game isn’t as easy for fans with disabilities, and while the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has led to great improvements for the nation’s sports stadiums, they’re all at different stages when it comes to accessibility.
We’ve ranked each stadium in the big four sports leagues on the following eight criteria to determine which cater the most to those with disabilities.
Assistive listening devices for those who are hard of hearing
Closed captioning for commentary/ announcements
Accessible parking spaces provided
An accessible area to drop-off and pick-up
Kits or rooms for those with sensory issues
Escort service to take guests in wheelchairs to their seat
Wheelchairs provided for the duration of the game
Sign language interpretation available
Please note that we sourced all information from the stadium websites, so while a stadium may offer a service, if they haven’t made this clear on their site, we haven’t awarded a point, as the information is not being made readily available to disabled fans.
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So, which are the sporting stadiums which go above and beyond to ensure that they’re accessible for all fans?
Across all four leagues, we found that 18 out of the 110 stadiums met seven out of eight of the accessible criteria, including the homes of some of the country’s biggest teams, such as the Chicago Bears, LA Lakers and Atlanta Braves.
See how all of the stadiums in the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL stack up below.
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League: NFL MLB NBA NHL
LEAGUE AVERAGE SCORE:
5.4/8
Football is the nation’s favourite sport, with some of the biggest stadiums in the country, but how accessible are they?
Amongst those which scored the highest were the Minnesota Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium and the MetLife Stadium, home to both the New York Giants and Jets and also the largest stadium in the league.
However, the stadium which we found the least information for disabled fans for was the Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, which offered no information about assistive listening devices or closed captioning for hard of hearing fans and also made no mention of any wheelchair services either.
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LEAGUE AVERAGE SCORE:
4.9/8
Two of baseball’s most iconic ballparks came out amongst those that were the most accessible: Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston, with both scoring seven out of eight, alongside SunTrust Park, Petco Park, Kauffman Stadium and the RingCentral Coliseum.
On the other hand, information was harder to come by for disabled fans of the Los Angeles Angels, whose stadium in Anaheim offers accessible parking and wheelchair assistance, but no information about assistive listening, captioning, or an accessible drop-off spot.
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LEAGUE AVERAGE SCORE:
5.8/8
The NBA was the league which scored the best for accessibility, thanks in no small part to the fact that they’ve teamed up with the non-profit organisation KultureCity to make many of their arenas “sensory inclusive” for fans on the autism spectrum and with other sensory needs.
The best arenas in the league included the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York, as well as the Staples Centre in LA, which is home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers.
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LEAGUE AVERAGE SCORE:
5/8
While the NHL was the worst scoring league out of the four, it still seems like hockey arenas are doing a pretty good job of keeping accessible.
As lots of hockey teams share stadiums with neighbouring basketball teams, there’s a bit of crossover here, such as MSG and the Staples Centre, with the Prudential Center, Pepsi Center, Capital One Arena and T-Mobile Arena also scoring highly.
However, the Montreal Canadiens home, the Bell Centre was actually the worst scoring stadium of all four leagues, with very little accessibility information provided on their website.
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All information was sourced from the individual websites of the stadium/arena itself, or the team that plays there.
If no information was available, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the stadium doesn’t offer that service, although if they do, they failed to make it clear or provide any information on their site, so we haven’t awarded a point.
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