Atlanta Sports Venues

Atlanta is uniquely positioned to host everything from marquee sporting events to amateur competitions. In fact, its well-rounded mix of modern venues, multiple tenured franchises, and companies and events that serve the sports industry earned it the No. 5 spot on the list of Best Sports Business Cities by Sports Business Journal in 2023. From flexible Atlanta event spaces to world-famous attractions, restaurants for all tastes and hotels for every budget, Atlanta will make a lasting impression on your athletes and attendees.

Popular Sporting Event Venues

Georgia World Congress Center

The Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) continues to be one of the nation's premier destinations for conventions, trade shows, film production, and much more. Located in the heart of downtown Atlanta, GWCC features 1.5 million square feet of prime exhibit space and is the world’s largest LEED-certified convention center. Consisting of three interconnected buildings, the GWCC offers a variety of flexible and dynamic spaces and hosts hundreds of world-class events each year, host indoor sporting activities such as basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, fencing, and more. Steps from the convention center’s doors, visitors will find 22-acre Centennial Olympic Park, The Home Depot Backyard and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Atlanta's very own world-class sports and entertainment facility is the official stadium of the NFL Atlanta Falcons and MLS Atlanta United. Mercedes-Benz Stadium has 71,000 seats (expandable up to 75,000), including 7,600 club seats, 190 suites and 24 bars and restaurants. It also features a 58-foot-tall halo board, which was the first of its kind in professional sports and redefines the in-stadium experience.

State Farm Arena

This multi-purpose arena is home of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, and recently completed a $192.5 million-dollar renovation to celebrate the team’s 50th year in Atlanta. State Farm Arena features the third-largest center-hung scoreboard in the NBA and most immersive video experience, new sightlines with 360-degree concourses, and first-of-its-kind in-venue entertainment options with Topgolf Swing Suites, Killer Mike’s SWAG Shop, the signature Hawks Bar, the NBA’s first courtside bar and the Zac Brown Social Club. Capacity for basketball is 16,000, and for concerts is 21,000+.

Truist Park

Truist Park, the home of the MLB Atlanta Braves is the first of its kind -- a destination that simultaneously builds and integrates a state-of-the-art Major League Baseball ballpark with a multi-use development and community, The Battery Atlanta. Truist Park is the perfect marriage of classic ballpark feel, modern amenities and Southern hospitality, which creates a fan experience unlike any other. An intimate setting of 41,000 seats is designed to maximize sightlines, making every seat feel like the "best in the house."

McAuley Aquatic Center at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)

The home of the Yellow Jacket swimming and diving program is the McAuley Aquatic Center. The facility was the site of all swimming, diving and synchronized swimming competition as well as the swimming portion of the modern pentathlon during the Centennial Olympic Games in summer 1996. It also played host to the 2005 Men’s and Women’s Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Swimming and Diving Championships, the 2005 NCAA Zone Diving Championships, the 2006 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, and most recently both the 2016 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.

The 1,900-seat main stadium contains a competition pool and a dive pool. The competition pool is 50 meters by 10 lanes, with two movable bulkheads so that courses can be set up for 25 yards, 25 meters or 30 meters for water polo. It also features a movable floor, which can be set from zero depth to seven feet, eight inches. The dive pool features one- and three-meter springboards plus one-, three-, five-, seven-and-a half- and 10-meter platforms, as well as a Spargar system that sends a mass of bubbles from the bottom of the tank to ease entry into the water.

Overtime Elite Arena (OTE)

OTE (Overtime Elite) is a transformative new sports league that offers the world’s most talented young basketball players a better pathway to becoming professional athletes. OTE (pronounced Oh-Tee-E) provides a comprehensive accelerator for elite players’ professional careers. The league offers a year-round development program combining world-class coaching, cutting-edge sports science and performance technologies, top-notch facilities, and a rigorous, highly personalized academic program that energizes and enhances each athlete’s journey from proficiency to pro for the next generation of athlete empowerment. OTE’s brand-new, 103,000-square-foot facility is located in Atlanta’s Atlantic Station neighborhood, where OTE’s players train, study and compete.

Other Area Attractions

Just steps away from Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena are a number of world-famous attractions at Centennial Olympic Park, including Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Football fans won't want to miss a visit to the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame.

How to Get There

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s most traveled airport is two hours from more than 80 percent of the country’s population and provides direct, non-stop access from more than 150 U.S. cities and 75 international destinations from six continents. Once you land in Atlanta, you’re less than 20 minutes from the heart of the city and everything Atlanta has to offer, with easy public transportation on MARTA or taxis, limos and shuttles.