Boone Pickens Stadium to Increase Seating Room, Decrease Capacity by 3,500

This past October, a buddy of mine and I landed some club-level tickets from a mutual friend and season-ticket holder for a fantastic Homecoming win over West Virginia. It was a blast.

But the 11 a.m. kickoff time left us baking in the sun of an unseasonably warm October morning from our borrowed north-side seats. And it was a bit cramped. Elbow-to-elbow, we did our best to avoid offending the regulars. Had it been more of a “sit-down game”, things could have been worse.

You’ve heard the expression “standing room only.” Well, if you’ve ever been to a Cowboy football game you’ve experienced the meaning of the phrase in the form of the average 12-16 inches of designated seat width. Let’s do an exercise. Put a ruler down on your chair. Sit on it. Yeah. Most of us won’t have much real estate to work with.

But there’s good news.

Oklahoma State has finally decided to act on their longtime intentions to make some changes to what the university’s website calls “the coziest 60,000-seat stadium in America”.

According to Andy Sumrall, OSU’s assistant athletic director of ticket operations, OSU plans to give fans a little more elbow room. Here he is from an article by Mark Cooper of the Tulsa World.

“Some of the biggest issues we have come from someone sitting on my seat or half of my seat,” said Sumrall. “Seats are just too close together.”

The change will take place over the offseason and is scheduled to be complete before the Cowboys’ home opener against Tulsa on September 2. It entails extending that varying, narrow seat width to a uniform 20 inches in most of the 200 and 300 level seats on the south side of the stadium and some on the north side per the Tulsa World.

The biggest difference other than increased personal space and comfort will be a decreased maximum capacity from 60,218, down to 56,790. But there has only been one true sellout — that frigid rout against Baylor in 2013.

Next year’s capacity was exceeded once last season — that homecoming game. But prior to 2016, that number was beaten 15 times in the previous four seasons. Below are are the home ticket sales for the last five seasons.

There will be a few of us left to tailgate or watch from home but overall, it sounds like these changes are for the better.

2016

Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
09/03/2016	Southeastern Louisiana	W 61-7	50,079
09/10/2016	Central Michigan	L 27-30*	52,523
09/17/2016	Pittsburgh	W 43-38	53,514
10/01/2016	Texas	W 49-31	53,468
10/08/2016	Iowa State	W 38-31	53,239
10/29/2016	West Virginia (HC)	W 37-20	59,584
11/12/0216	Texas Tech	W 45-44	54,288

2015

Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
09/12/2015	Central Arkansas	W 32-8	56,262
09/19/2015	UTSA	W 69-14	54,351
10/03/2015	Kansas State	W 36-34	57,618
10/24/2015	Kansas (HC)	W 58-10	59,486
11/07/2015	TCU	W 49-29	59,061
11/21/2015	Baylor	L 35-45	58,669
11/28/2015	Oklahoma	L 23-58	58,231

2014

Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
09/06/2014	Southwest Missouri State	W 40-23	51,562
09/13/2014	UTSA	W 43-13	54,577
09/25/2014	Texas Tech	W 45-35	55,958
10/04/2014	Iowa State	W 37-20	52,608
10/25/2014	West Virginia (HC)	L 10-34	59,124
11/15/2014	Texas	L 7-28	52,495

2013

Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
09/14/2013	Lamar	W 59-3	59,061
10/05/2013	Kansas State	W 33-29	58,841
10/19/2013	TCU (HC)	W 24-10	59,638
11/09/2013	Kansas	W 42-6	58,476
11/23/2013	Baylor	W 49-17	60,218
12/7/2013	Oklahoma	L 24-33	58,520

2012

Date	Opponent	Result	Attendance
09/01/2012	Savannah State	W 84-0	55,784
09/15/2012	Louisiana-Lafayette	W 65-24	56,062
09/29/2012	Texas	L 36-41	56,709
10/20/2012	Iowa State (HC)	W 31-10	57,019
10/27/2012	TCU	W 36-14	57,183
11/10/2012	West Virginia	W 55-34	57,799
11/17/2012	Texas Tech	W 59-21	55,341