We analyzed over 450,000 visitor reviews of Paris 2024 Olympic venues and ranked them by their percentage of 4 and 5-star ratings.
This year’s Olympic games will take place in 35 venues both in Paris and across other historic French cities and landmarks.
Estimates put the cost of the Olympic games at between €9 billion to €10 billion to run. As part of Paris 2024’s sustainability goals, 95% of the venues will also be pre-existing or temporary structures.
And France certainly isn’t short of historic landmarks and sporting arenas to repurpose into Olympic venues: from the Palace and Gardens of Versailles to the soccer stadiums of Bordeaux, Marseille and Lyon.
But which of these venues are rated the highest by people who have already experienced them? We've crunched the numbers on tourist reviews so that future visitors to Paris can ensure they tick off all of the best Olympic sites.
Our research
We analyzed 456,881 visitor reviews of the arenas and landmarks that have been built or converted into venues for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
We then ranked each venue on having the highest percentage of 4 and 5-star visitor ratings.
The 10 highest rated sports stadiums at the Paris 2024 Olympics
The organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics appear to have chosen wisely when selecting which traditional sports venues to use for hosting the games.
As the ranking below shows, every sports stadium down to 8th place is ranked with 4 or 5-stars by at least 90% of the people who have visited them.
Even those ranked in 9th and 10th place score reasonably at 89.2% (Stade de France) and 88.8% (the Bercy Arena).
The Bercy Arena is located by the riverside in Paris's 12th district and sports a distinctive pyramid shape. For this summer's games, it will be hosting artistic gymnastics, basketball and trampoline events.
Breaking down the top 3 highest rated sports arenas at the Paris 2024 Olympics
Here we take a more detailed look at the three traditional sports arenas that are the most highly rated in France by previous visitors.
1. Parc Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon Stadium) - 4 and 5-star reviews: 92.6%
Built in 2016, the home of Ligue 1 side Olympique Lyonnais (OL) is a 59,186-capacity stadium that is hosting soccer matches during the Olympic games.
Also known by its sponsorship name the Groupama Stadium, the arena sits within the metropolis of Lyon and has already hosted notable soccer events such as the semi-finals of Euro 2016 and the Europa League final in 2018.
One lucky fan who had the pleasure of seeing Lionel Messi play at Lyon Stadium in 2022 was also impressed by the stadium’s overall spectacle: “The pre-game show was just sick!! Loved the fireworks and the passionate Lyon fans.”
Eleven soccer fixtures for Paris 2024 are scheduled to be played here, including a quarter-final and semi-final for both the men’s and the women’s teams.
Aside from its sporting credentials, the stadium is also credited for environmentally-friendly initiatives such as generating much of its energy from solar panels and for creating dedicated biodiversity areas around the venue.
2. Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium (Saint-Etienne Stadium) - 4 and 5-star reviews: 92.5%
The second-highest rated Olympic arena at Paris 2024 is the home of French soccer club AS Saint-Etienne.
With nearly 100 years of sporting history, the stadium has already hosted games from major sporting events such as the 1984 UEFA European Championships, the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Nicknamed “Le Chaudron,” it seats over 41,000 spectators, making it one of France’s largest capacity stadiums.
For Paris 2024, it will host three group matches from each of the men’s and women’s soccer competitions.
Spectators will be pleased to hear plenty of endorsements of the stadium's views and access including from one visitor in September 2023 who said:: “Easily accessible with excellent views from all seats. Plenty of buses and trams at the end.”
3. Stade Roland-Garros - 4 and 5-star reviews: 92.1%
According to visitors, Paris 2024’s third-highest rated sporting arena is the Stade Rolan-Garros.
This sprawling complex of stadiums is the home of French tennis and hosts the French Open in late May of each year.
The historic venue first built in 1928 will be opening its doors to more than tennis and wheelchair tennis for this summer’s games, with boxing and sitting volleyball also being played at its sites.
The most highly anticipated fixtures being hosted at Stade Roland-Garros are likely to be the men’s and women’s tennis gold medal ties. These will take place at the complex’s centerpiece venue: Court Philippe Chatrier on the 3rd and 4th August.
Nine in ten visitors rate the arena complex as four stars or higher, including one tennis fan who was lucky enough to witness Rafael Nadal bow out on the stage where he won most of his Grand Slam titles: “The grounds are beautiful, lots of vibrant activity, excitement for the tournament and overall a great experience.”
The highest rated landmark venues at the Paris 2024 Olympics
Despite the wide choice of impressive sports stadiums, organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics are making use of many more venues and landmarks to host particular events.
Below you can see how historical landmarks such as Pont Alexandre III bridge are rated by visitors. The famous Paris bridge that connects the River Seine’s two banks will have temporary stands set up nearby to allow people to view the road cycling, marathon swimming and triathlon events.
Many of these notable indoor venues and tourist sites that typically host non-sporting events are having temporary stadium-type structures built within their grounds. The South Paris Arena, for example, has been built within the 35 hectares of the Paris Expo complex where the International Agricultural Show is an annual fixture on its calendar.
The Paris Expo is already visited by more than 7.5 million people in a typical year, so it is likely to be well-placed to welcome the many thousands that turn up to see the handball, table tennis, volleyball and weightlifting Olympic events that it's hosting.
Every Paris 2024 competition venue ranked according to visitor reviews
Below you can find all of the competition venues* (sports arenas and landmarks) from our analysis combined inside a single ranking.
Which venues would you like to visit on the Olympic trail?
*Venues with fewer than 100 Google visitor reviews were not considered in the final ranking.
The priciest Olympic events on the resale market at Paris 2024
For those lucky enough to be able to attend the Olympic events this year, how much are they paying for tickets?
We also took a look at the official Paris 2024 resale market going into the final week of events. Below we have calculated the most expensive events to attend, based on their average pricing (USD) for a single ticket.
Event (time and venue): average price (USD):
Closing Ceremony (Sunday, 11th August | 21:00 | Stade de France): $1,031
Athletics (Friday, 9th August | 19:00 | Stade de France): $746
Athletics (Saturday, 10th August | 18:30 | Stade de France): $727
Athletics (Wednesday, 7th August | 18:30 | Stade de France: $644
Athletics (Thursday, 8th August | 19:00 | Stade de France: $603
Athletics (Tuesday, 6th August | 19:00 | Stade de France): $597
Basketball (Sunday, 8th August | 3:30 PM | Arena Bercy): $549
Track Cycling (Saturday, 10th August | 17:00 | National Velodrome St-Quentin-en-Yvelines): $418
Boxing (Saturday, 10th August | 21:30 | Stade Roland-Garros (Philippe-Chatrier): $307
Basketball (Saturday, 10th August | 11:00 | Arena Bercy): $305
Methodology
We took 456,881 Google reviews for the stadiums, arenas and landmarks being used or converted into venues for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
We separated sports stadiums from other landmarks and buildings to create two separate rankings of the venues with the highest percentage of 4 and 5-star visitor reviews. Arenas and landmarks with fewer than 100 visitor reviews were removed from the final ranking.
While reviews of the sports stadiums mostly discuss its quality as a sports venue, the reviews of the converted landmarks are mostly referring to the site from a traditional tourist’s perspective. These reviews provide an indication of their suitability to host major events such as the Olympic games and rate their quality as general tourist attractions.
Photos sourced via Wikicommons and published under various Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of photo credits, click here.
In addition, we calculated the average price of events going into the final week of the Olympics. Prices were sourced from the official Paris 2024 resale site and converted into US dollars from Euros on the 5th August 2024.
