Pizza for a sold-out stadium
A sold-out stadium: 40,000 fans. A generous sponsor offers pizza to everyone, and experience says each person eats about 3 slices.
120,000 slices15,000 pizzas5.25 km pizza queue
The question: How many giant (35 cm) pizzas do you need to order — and do they even fit on the pitch?
the result
15,000 pizzas
One giant pizza = 8 slices. A pizza's area is πr², with r = 17.5 cm.
Work it out
- 40,000 × 3 = 120,000 slices.
- ÷ 8 = 15,000 pizzas.
- One pizza ≈ 0.096 m², so all together ≈ 1,450 m².
- A pitch is 105 × 68 m ≈ 7,100 m².
- 1,450 ÷ 7,100 ≈ 20 % — one fifth of the grass.
15,000 pizzas — enough to carpet only a fifth of the pitch. Lined up edge to edge, they'd form a 5.25 km queue.
What it teaches
Areas scale with the square of the radius: circles look big in the box and tiny on the field. Always check how much food the crowd actually needs.