A sports field or court’s area is almost always a simple rectangle — length times width — but the exact dimensions differ by sport, level of play, and governing body, and a few fields aren’t rectangles at all. This calculator covers common fields and courts (football, soccer, basketball, tennis, and a baseball diamond) with their official dimensions built in, and it also handles one genuinely irregular shape from the sports world: home plate, baseball’s five-sided pentagon.
Pick a preset below to see a field or court’s area instantly, or switch to Custom and enter your own length and width. The Home Plate tab walks through the pentagon’s own area calculation, using the official Major League Baseball dimensions as a starting point you can edit.
Calculating a Rectangular Field or Court’s Area
Field Area = Length × Width
Where:
Length = the field or court’s longer dimension
Width = the field or court’s shorter dimension
Most sports fields and courts are simple rectangles, so once you know the two dimensions, the area is one multiplication. The differences between sports come entirely from which length and width apply.
Pick a sport, or choose Custom and enter your own length and width.
Home plate is an irregular pentagon: one straight edge facing the pitcher, two parallel sides, and two angled edges meeting at a point. Defaults are the official MLB dimensions — edit them to explore other sizes.
American Football Field Dimensions and Area
An American football field is measured two ways: the total field including both end zones, and the playing field between the goal lines only.
Total Field, Including End Zones
Worked Example
The total field measures 360 ft by 160 ft: 360 × 160 = 57,600 square feet, which is about 1.32 acres.
Playing Field Only, Goal Line to Goal Line
Worked Example
Excluding the two 30-ft end zones, the playing field measures 300 ft by 160 ft: 300 × 160 = 48,000 square feet.
Soccer Pitch Dimensions and Area
Soccer pitches vary more than most fields, since the Laws of the Game allow a range of sizes for international matches rather than one fixed size.
FIFA-Recommended Size
FIFA recommends a pitch of exactly 105 meters by 68 meters for top-level matches, though the rules note that not all professional pitches actually conform to this recommendation.
Worked Example
Converted to feet, 105m × 68m is about 344.49 ft × 223.10 ft ≈ 76,856 square feet.
International Minimum and Maximum
For international matches, the Laws of the Game allow a length of 100 to 110 meters and a width of 64 to 73 meters — a fairly wide range, which is why two pitches can look similar in photos but differ noticeably in area.
Worked Example
The smallest allowed pitch (100m × 64m) is about 328.08 ft × 209.97 ft ≈ 68,889 square feet. The largest allowed pitch (110m × 73m) is about 360.89 ft × 239.50 ft ≈ 86,434 square feet — roughly 25% larger than the minimum.
Basketball and Tennis Court Areas
Basketball Court
An NBA court measures 94 ft by 50 ft. FIBA and NCAA Division I men’s basketball use a metric court of 28m by 15m instead, which converts to roughly 91.86 ft by 49.21 ft — slightly smaller than an NBA court.
Worked Example
NBA court: 94 × 50 = 4,700 square feet. FIBA/NCAA court: 91.86 × 49.21 ≈ 4,520 square feet.
Tennis Court
A tennis court’s playing area depends on whether it’s marked for singles or doubles play. Both use the same 78-ft length; only the width changes, since the doubles alleys add width on each side.
Worked Example
Doubles court: 78 × 36 = 2,808 square feet. Singles court: 78 × 27 = 2,106 square feet.
Baseball Infield (Diamond) Area
The baseball “diamond” — the square formed by home plate, first base, second base, and third base — is a 90-ft square, even though the bases themselves are laid out at a 45-degree angle to the foul lines. Rotating a square doesn’t change its area, so the infield’s area is still just side squared.
Worked Example
90 × 90 = 8,100 square feet for the infield square. (In practice, the actual center-to-center distance to second base runs slightly under 90 ft, since the second-base bag sits inside the corner of the square rather than centered on it — a small, well-documented quirk of how the bases are placed rather than a change to the official 90-ft square itself.)
Home Plate Area: Baseball’s Irregular Pentagon
Home plate isn’t a rectangle, a square, or even a regular polygon — it’s an irregular pentagon defined by five edges: a 17-inch edge facing the pitcher, two 8.5-inch edges running straight back from its corners, and two 12-inch edges that angle inward to meet at a point.
Breaking the Pentagon Into a Rectangle and a Triangle
Home Plate Area = Rectangle Area + Point (Triangle) Area
Where:
Rectangle Area = Top Edge × Side Edge (the 17-in by 8.5-in section nearest the pitcher)
Triangle Area = the area of the triangular point at the back, found from the top edge and the two angled edges using Heron’s formula
Worked Example: Official MLB Dimensions
Rectangle portion: 17 × 8.5 = 144.5 square inches. Triangle portion (from the 17-in, 12-in, and 12-in sides): about 72.0 square inches. Total: 144.5 + 72.0 ≈ 216.5 square inches, or about 1.5 square feet.
Why Home Plate’s Official Dimensions Don’t Form a Perfect Pentagon
Here’s a detail that surprises a lot of people: home plate’s official rulebook dimensions are actually a slight geometric contradiction. The two 8.5-inch side edges are meant to be perpendicular to the 17-inch top edge, and the two 12-inch point edges are meant to meet at a right angle (since they align with the foul lines, which themselves meet at a right angle at home plate). But a rectangle-plus-right-triangle built to all of those exact measurements at once isn’t quite mathematically possible — the numbers are off by a fraction of an inch. In practice, a physically manufactured home plate is built accurately to within a small tolerance rather than perfectly satisfying every stated dimension simultaneously, and the calculator above uses the standard rectangle-plus-triangle decomposition (treating the 17-in, 12-in, and 12-in edges as a valid triangle via Heron’s formula) to arrive at the commonly used area figure.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the area of home plate?
Using the official 17-in, 8.5-in, 8.5-in, 12-in, and 12-in edge lengths, home plate’s area works out to approximately 216.5 square inches, or about 1.5 square feet.
How big is a football field in square feet?
A full football field including both end zones is 57,600 square feet (about 1.32 acres). The playing field alone, goal line to goal line, is 48,000 square feet.
Why do soccer pitches come in different sizes?
The Laws of the Game allow a range for international matches (100–110m long, 64–73m wide) rather than one fixed size, so pitch area varies by venue. FIFA recommends 105m by 68m for top-level matches specifically.
Is the baseball infield really a perfect square?
The bases are laid out to form a 90-ft square by rule, though the actual measured distance to the second-base bag runs slightly under 90 ft because of where the bag itself is placed relative to the corner. The 90-ft square is the standard reference for the infield’s area.
Does an NBA court and a FIBA court have the same area?
No — an NBA court (94 x 50 ft) is somewhat larger than a FIBA or current NCAA Division I men’s court (28m x 15m, about 91.86 x 49.21 ft), even though both look similar at a glance.
Can I calculate the area of a different sports field with this tool?
Yes — choose Custom on the Sports Field / Court Area tab and enter any length and width to get that field or court’s area in square feet, square yards, and acres.