Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium The Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is the on - campus football facility for the University of Oklahoma Sooners in Norman , Oklahoma . The official seating capacity of the stadium , following recent renovations , is 82 , 112 , making it the 15th largest college stadium in the United States and the second largest in the Big 12 Conference ( behind Darrell K Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas ) . The record attendance for the stadium was set during a 2012 home game against Notre Dame , with 86 , 031 in attendance . The stadium is also the site of Spring Commencement exercises for the university . The stadium is a horseshoe - shaped facility with its long axis oriented north / south , with the north end enclosed and the south end partially enclosed . Visitor seating is in the south end zone and the southern sections of the east side . The student seating sections are in the east stands , surrounding the 350 - member Pride of Oklahoma which sits in section 29 , between the 20 - and 35 - yard lines . The Sooners ' bench was once located on the east side with the students , but the home bench was moved to the west ( shady ) side in the mid - 1990s . Early history . The first game played at the current stadium site was in 1923 , with the Sooners prevailing over Washington University 62 – 7 . When 16 , 000 permanent seats were built on the west side of the site in 1925 , the new stadium was named Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in honor of university students and personnel that died during World War I . The facility was constructed at an approximate cost of $ 293 , 000 , and coach Bennie Owen himself helped raise the money . To honor Owen , the playing surface was named Owen Field during the 1920s . ( The stadium is popularly called Owen Field , but in actuality the field and the stadium are two separate objects with two separate names . The tongue twistingly awkward formal reference is to say that a game is played in Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field ) . There are two main reasons why the stadium is not a fully enclosed " bowl " like , for example , Michigan Stadium or the Rose Bowl . First , access to the three outdoor football practice fields , which are behind the south end zone seats , would have been restricted by completely enclosing the south end of the stadium . Secondly , any enclosure would have forced the baseball field , which shared its outfield with the practice fields until 1982 , to shorten its left field line considerably . More permanent seating was added , this time to the east side , in 1929 . In 1949 , the north end of the stadium was enclosed , the playing area was lowered six feet , and a running track was added around the field . The stadium capacity when completed was 55 , 000 and the addition of south end bleachers in 1957 brought capacity to just under 61 , 836 fans . AstroTurf replaced the natural grass field in 1970 . The west side upper deck was added in 1975 , featuring a lounge and a new press box , for a total capacity of 71 , 187 fans at a cost of about $ 5 . 7 million . Improved south end zone seating , including new coaches offices and training facilities , was added in 1980 and the old turf was replaced with Superturf in 1981 . With a few exceptions , these changes took place during or shortly after the Sooners ' national championship seasons of 1950 , 1955 , 1956 , 1974 , and 1975 – all high times for Sooner sports . Lights , camera , football , money . Up until the 1980s , the NCAA had a tight grip on television contracts for Division I - A college football games . Compared to the current plethora of college football games on television , only two ( on rare occasions , three ) college football games were televised each week and the schedule of games was set in stone well in advance of the season opening . The NCAA reasoned that televised games cut into attendance , and more TV games would cost more money in lost gate receipts than could be gained with television contracts . In the fall of 1981 , the University of Oklahoma joined with the University of Georgia to sue the NCAA in Federal court in Oklahoma City . In this class - action lawsuit on behalf of members of the College Football Association , the two schools alleged that the NCAA ' s contracts with ABC , NBC , and CBS violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by preventing each college and conference from selling its product on the open market . The court agreed with the schools in 1982 and voided the NCAA ' s television contracts . Less than two years later , the Sooners and the rest of Division I - A were playing seven to ten games each season on television . This presented a new problem for the University and its stadium . At the time , the thriving Sooners and the Chicago Cubs had one thing in common : neither Wrigley Field nor Owen Field had permanent artificial lighting sufficient for television broadcasts at night . This meant that untelevised home games had to start in the morning or early afternoon so as to be completed by dark , because the cost of leasing a set of portable television lights was too high for a game that would not earn enough revenue to pay for those lights . For all televised games , portable lights on trucks were rented – but the leasing costs cut into the University ' s revenue , and often the four or five portable light trucks stayed on campus for weeks in anticipation of the next televised game . True night games were very difficult to play in Norman because of the amount of portable lighting needed to illuminate the field adequately for spectators to see the players , much less the light required for television . Prior to 1982 , the University knew which games would be televised and could plan months ahead for leasing the necessary lighting . With the successful outcome of the court case against the NCAA , more late afternoon and night games were scheduled in Norman and television schedules changed during the season , requiring large portable light trucks to take up space on campus while waiting for the next televised game . It was not until 1997 that permanent television lights were installed in all four corners of the stadium , along with a new south end zone video scoreboard to replace the antiquated main scoreboard . Owen Field switched back to natural grass ( prescription turf ) from the aging Superturf in 1994 , improving the field ' s drainage system in the process . ( Prior to the drainage improvements it was not uncommon for water to make large pools on the sidelines during heavy rains ) . These two improvements , the turf switch in 1994 and the lighting / scoreboard installation in 1997 , were the only major improvements to the stadium for nearly 20 years . A 21st century stadium . By 1999 , the 75 - year - old stadium was showing its age . Except for the turf and lighting enhancements , no substantial upgrade of the stadium had occurred since the press box was built 25 years earlier , in 1975 . The OU College of Architecture was housed under the west stands and in the north end zone , until other facilities became available in 1990 . The artificial turf on Owen Field had literally become threadbare before its replacement in 1981 ; it is possible that the poor condition of the Superturf , prior to its 1994 replacement , contributed to a crash of the Sooner Schooner during a 1993 game against Colorado . The east side of the stadium still had the original dirt flooring underneath the stands , making for a cloudy , dusty walk into the student and visitor seating sections . Restrooms were old and inadequate ; paint was peeling off external walls and the areas under the stands ( the east side in particular ) were dark and smelled like dust . Plans began in 1997 to upgrade most athletic department facilities , beginning with a five - year fundraising campaign . Then , unexpectedly , the Sooners won the BCS National Championship for the 2000 season . The University began to get more freshman applications than it could house due in large part to the football team ' s success . Along with other campus improvements such as more and better student housing , the refurbishment and expansion plan for the stadium was accelerated to be ready by the beginning of the 2003 season . In 2002 , every seat in the stadium was replaced and the north end zone scoreboard was dismantled in preparation for replacement . From 2003 to 2004 , the entire video and audio systems were replaced and new video scoreboards were placed at both end zones . The west side , long ignored except for the press box construction in 1975 , received restroom and concession improvements . Most importantly , a street running east of the east stands was moved to allow for the construction of an upper deck with club seating for 2 , 500 and 27 suites on the east side , which increased the capacity of the stadium to its current figure of 82 , 112 . The renovation , led by architecture firms 360 Architecture and HOK Sport , cost $ 54 million . The north and west entries were renovated to match the Cherokee Gothic look of most campus buildings , and other cosmetic enhancements were made to the press box . A reflecting pool just north of the stadium , filled in during the 1949 north end zone expansion , was restored in 2000 . A new war memorial , listing the names of all Sooners killed while serving in the U . S . armed forces , was placed next to the reflecting pool in 2003 . The Barry Switzer Center , under the south end zone , was opened in 1999 and houses the football locker room , video rooms , football coaches offices , the football conditioning center , a state - of - the - art sports medicine facility , and the Legends Lobby , a large museum dedicated to the history of Oklahoma football . The basketball coaches ' offices are located in the Lloyd Noble Center , but the rest of the OU athletic coaches ' offices , the Athletic Director ' s office , and the OU Athletics administrators ' offices are located in the north end of the stadium in the McClendon Center . $ 12 million toward the $ 75 million cost of the stadium project was donated by Christy Gaylord Everest , current publisher of " The Oklahoman " and daughter of Edward K . Gaylord , in 2002 . The stadium was renamed to its current name in honor of this gift . ( The Gaylords donated a total of $ 50 million to the University around this time , including $ 22 million for a new building to house the College of Journalism . ) In 2009 , the stadium welcomed The Black Eyed Peas and U2 as a part of the 360 Tour . Recent innovations and future plans . In a February 2007 radio interview , OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione said that a new stadium master plan was in development . Castiglione spoke about replacing the press box and expanding the south end zone seating but gave no timetable or other details . In March 2007 , the OU Board of Regents approved an Athletic Department request for $ 10 . 3 million to replace the displays and the sound systems of both the stadium and the Lloyd Noble Center . The improvements include the installation of a state - of - the - art Daktronics 16mm HD - ready video replay board in the north end zone , which replaced an older matrix messageboard , and digital 23mm LED ribbon displays along the edges of both upper decks , the north end zone , and the north tunnel entrances . Eight new concession stands were added , along with more than 60 new toilets in the women ' s restrooms , 30 new water fountains , handrails on all aisles of the upper decks , new speakers in all restrooms , and a new public address system . Phase two replaced the obsolete displays and sound system of the Lloyd Noble Center . The final phase was completed prior to the 2008 season and included replacement of the stadium ' s south scoreboard and sound system within the existing structure . The new displays are compatible with high - definition television equipment , although no HD cameras were purchased during the project . Attendance Records . The following are the largest crowds in the history of the stadium :