An acre is smaller than a full American football field (including end zones), but not by a lot. An acre is about three-quarters the size of a football field.

Core numbers

  • 1 acre = 43,560 square feet.
  • A standard American football field (including both end zones) is 360 feet long by 160 feet wide, for a total of 57,600 square feet.
  • That means a football field is about 1.32 acres in area.

So how do they compare?

  • If you start with one full football field, an acre would cover about 76% of it (because 43,560 ÷ 57,600 ≈ 0.76).
  • Flipped around, you can say:
    • 1 football field ≈ 1.3 acres.
* 1 acre ≈ three-quarters of a football field.

A simple way to visualize it: imagine standing at one goal line and looking across the field; an acre would reach most of the way to the other end, but not quite the full distance if you tried to “fill” the same rectangle.

TL;DR: An acre is 43,560 square feet, while a full American football field is 57,600 square feet, so an acre is roughly three-quarters the size of a football field.