Built specifically for the Olympics, water polo took place in 1972 at the Schwimmhale in the Olympiapark in Munich. The indoor arena hosted water polo, swimming, diving, and the swimming section of the modern pentathlon. It had seating for 9,000 in 1972 but after the Olympics was downsized to a seating capacity of 1,500.
Sixteen teams were separated into three preliminary round pools, conducted as round-robins. The top two teams from each pool advanced to the final round, again in a round-robin format. In the final round, match results from the prelims were carried over. A consolation pool was also conducted among the third- and fourth-placed teams in the preliminary round-robins.
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