A stated goal of mine since adolescence — and, indeed, a big reason why I started Itinerant Fan in the first place — was to visit every current stadium in the four major U.S. sports leagues: the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.

It’s a pursuit that usually takes folks many years. My pursuit took nearly 30 years, and really, I’ve been dreaming about it for nearly as long as I’ve been alive.

But as of November 2025, I can finally say I have climbed the mountain and become a member of what a fellow sports travel blogger has cleverly dubbed “Club 124” — the number signifies the total of teams across the four sports leagues.

I got there by checking off my final two NFL stadiums, seeing the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium and then the Giants at MetLife Stadium on consecutive weekends (I had already seen the Jets at MetLife years ago).

So to put it more accurately, I have now seen a home game for each of the 124 teams across the four major sports leagues. In the case of two NFL stadiums and a handful of NBA/NHL arenas, that meant making two separate visits to see each of the tenants in action.

Of course, no one is giving me a trophy for this achievement (at least not to my knowledge). But I can at least say it’s a great conversation starter — the gentleman I sat next to at the Dolphins game seemed delighted when I told him why I was there — and something I can look back upon with pride no matter where my travels for sports take me in the future.

Perhaps you have the same goal to see every stadium in the four major U.S. sports leagues. Or maybe it’s just to complete one of the leagues. Or maybe it’s European soccer, Japanese baseball or some other sports travel goal you have. Whatever it is, I hope that I can provide some inspiration and/or motivation by detailing my journey. Here’s how I did it.

The journey from 1 to 124

Stadium No. 1 on this quest came when I was 9 years old. Sensing my burgeoning interest in sports, my family took me to see the then-California Angels in the ballpark now known as Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

Of course, I didn’t know at the time that I wanted to pursue such an audacious goal. It wasn’t until years later, when I was pretty close to becoming an independent adult and I had several more stadiums under my belt for various reasons, that I began to wonder how possible it was to see every venue across the four major sports leagues.

At the time I formed this goal (I’m definitely dating myself here, but this was in the mid-1990s), the American sports landscape wasn’t quite as wide as it is today. Major League Soccer was in its infancy, for example, and popular women’s sports leagues of the present day like the WNBA and NWSL didn’t exist yet.

In addition, the four major leagues weren’t quite as large as they are today — if I completed this quest back then, I would’ve joined “Club 113.”

All of this is to say that in my possibly naive mind, going to all of these stadiums didn’t seem quite that unreasonable. However, I made no real plans to tackle this goal ambitiously for quite a while. I would take these stadium visits as they came.

It was right around 2010 — the year I began blogging about sports travel with a site that eventually became Itinerant Fan — that I got serious about completing the list, and it became my stated goal and reason for seeing different stadiums.

And indeed, I began to pick up the pace. I was around 60 venues visited at the time, and I made it a point to try to check off between five and 10 each year going forward.

I was nearing 100 and had completed my MLB list when the pandemic hit in 2020. Motivated quite a bit by the lost time it caused, I set about in mid-2021 to focus my sports travel efforts on getting to as many new venues as I could knock off in a reasonable manner.

My first post-pandemic trip closed a circle: By watching a game at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, I again finished my list of the 30 current MLB stadiums (remember, the Rangers opened their new park in 2020 when fans were mostly barred from attending games).

From then on, I made several strategic trips each year in an effort to visit new stadiums in an efficient manner. I continued to make progress on each front, completing the NHL circuit in the spring of 2023.

By the summer of 2025, I was left with the two NFL stadiums mentioned above plus one NBA arena (the Lakers’ Crypto.com Arena, located in my hometown of Los Angeles). Easy pickings, and I checked off all three within a two-week span to finally reach my goal.

While I basically jumped around from sport to sport and let geography and circumstance dictate my travels more than anything, I did prioritize certain leagues from time to time. I’ll break down how I tackled completing each league list below.

By the way, if the whole concept of Club 124 intrigues you, check out the site of the man who coined the term, Sean MacDonald.

MLB: 30/30!

I first reached 30-for-30 status in MLB way back in 2015 when I attended a Marlins game at what’s now known as LoanDepot Park. Baseball, of course, is the easiest of the four leagues to complete because of the sheer number of games. You can conceivably knock out a giant chunk on one well-planned itinerary of 7 to 10 days.

Geography also works in the favor of the traveling MLB fan, as clusters of ballparks on the Eastern seaboard, in the Midwest and in the Southwest also make for great multi-city baseball journeys.

I had most of the majors covered by 2010, save for four or five ballparks that weren’t that close to each other. That’s why it took me a little bit to get to 30-for-30 status.

But since I obtained it, I’ve made sure to not let any new gaps linger. Every time a new MLB ballpark has opened or come into use since 2015, I’ve hustled to get there within the first season or two at the most. That meant making special trips to see Truist Park in Atlanta, Globe Life Field in Arlington, Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, and Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

In the future, I’m hoping to revisit the Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Field after its refurbishing, and I’m very curious about the Athletics’ upcoming ballpark in Las Vegas, set to open in 2028.

NFL: 32/32!

Conversely to MLB, the NFL is the toughest league to cover every stadium for because there are so few games each year compared to the other leagues, plus it’s difficult to get to more than one game in a single trip.

So it’s not surprising to me that the NFL was the last league I was able to complete. And as I pared my list down, I reached the point where my remaining stadiums were scattered randomly across the country. In order, the final five cities I had to travel to were: L.A. (OK, I didn’t have to travel there cause I live there), Kansas City, Atlanta, Miami and New York City/New Jersey.

There is one advantage to NFL travel worth mentioning: Most of the time you can do it in one weekend, or even leave and return via air on the same day if the destination is close enough to where you live. I’ve done that several times on NFL Sundays, traveling with whatever I needed for the day in the clear bag that stadiums permit fans to have.

Though my NFL list is complete, two new stadiums are set to open in 2026. So I’ll definitely be making plans to visit Buffalo and Nashville next fall.

NBA: 30/30!

I’ll admit that of the four leagues, the NBA is the lowest priority for me. But I’ve always been intrigued by the NBA’s unique challenge of traveling to markets not represented in the other leagues, and visits to places like Oklahoma City and San Antonio have been some of my favorite sports travel journeys in recent years.

Because I managed to check off some of these far-flung (as far as the sports landscape is concerned, anyway) destinations along the way, finishing off the last few NBA arenas I needed with relative ease. Especially because I saved perhaps a surprising spot for last: Seeing a Lakers game at Crypto.com Arena in my backyard was my 30th of 30 arenas.

Why did I save the Lakers for last? Well, the team’s popularity means that tickets are nearly always too expensive for my taste. And when something’s right down the street from you, you tend to take it for granted and think to yourself, “There’s always next time.”

I’m just glad that when push came to shove, the last arena on my list was right there.

NHL: 32/32!

Hockey is hands-down my favorite sport, so it’s no surprise that this is the second league that I’ve completed.

I finished my NHL arena list in the spring of 2023 with a visit to the Minnesota Wild’s home, now known as Grand Casino Arena. But in the couple years since, I’ve made it a point to see games a handful of out-of-town arenas, especially if it’s been a long time since the last visit.

For example, last spring I saw my first St. Louis Blues game at Enterprise Center in 25 years! And this season I caught a New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden for the first time in a decade.

I plan to keep this pace going for the foreseeable future because, well, I just love hockey.

Beyond the four ‘major’ sports

These days, there’s so much more to the sports landscape than just the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, and even as I remained focused on completing my longtime goal, I’ve tried to expand my horizons a bit.

The popularity of MLS has exploded over the last decade or so, and I’ve had more than a few requests over the years to provide more content on the stadiums around the U.S. and Canada. So that’s a goal of mine over the next few years.

International soccer isn’t just for the absolute die-hards anymore. The European game is more accessible than ever to Stateside fans. I’ve seen matches in England, Spain and Germany in recent years, and want to add more of the big clubs’ grounds to my list. In fact, I’ve got at least one match in France’s Ligue 1 lined up this winter.

The NFL’s International Series is a worthy thing to build travel around, too. I’ve seen one international NFL game, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, and it remains hands-down one of my favorite travel experiences of all time.

As the NFL expands its lineup of international destinations, I’m hoping to get to at least a few of them in the coming years. I haven’t yet seen a game in London, and I consider it one of the biggest holes in my list of sports travel experiences.

I’ve also seen baseball in Japan and Aussie rules football and rugby league in Australia. Who knows what other random sports travel adventures lie ahead?

The point is, my main goal might be complete, but I’m not going to stop traveling for sports. I just love it too much.