Boone Pickens Stadium named best College Football Stadium

Boone Pickens Stadium named best college football stadium

USA TODAY compiled the rankings from Yelp, Tripadvisor and Google reviews.

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens Stadium is the best college football stadium in the country according to USA TODAY, which used reviews from Yelp, Tripadvisor and Google to compile college football stadium rankings for 2025.

In more than 1,700 combined reviews between the three services, Boone Pickens Stadium has an average of 4.8 stars to edge out Kansas State’s Bill Snyder Family Stadium and Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium for the top spot among the 136 Football Bowl Subdivision venues.

One of just a handful of east-west oriented fields in football, Boone Pickens Stadium has been the home of the Cowboys for more than 100 years, but its emergence as a top facility didn’t occur until the 21st century.

The wheels were set in motion to bring the stadium to its current form when OSU graduate Boone Pickens made the single-largest gift in school history in 2003. His $70 million donation ($20 million of which was earmarked for stadium expansion) spurred the “Next Level Campaign,” which generated more than $100 million in gifts and pledges and involved more than 2,500 individuals.

The stadium, formerly known as Lewis Field, was renamed Boone Pickens Stadium during a halftime ceremony as part of the Cowboys’ 2003 season opener against Wyoming.

In the wake of Pickens’ gift, major renovations to the south side of the stadium that included suites and club seating were completed in 2004. That scene was essentially mirrored on the north side in 2006. After Pickens gave an additional $165 million in 2006 – the largest donation in the history of college athletics – approximately 20,000 new seats were added to the west side of the stadium and it was completely bowled in for the 2008 season.

The relocation of Cowboy Football operations to the West End Zone in the summer of 2009 punctuated one of the largest building projects in recent NCAA history, and Boone Pickens Stadium was officially re-dedicated on Sept. 5, 2009.

Boone Pickens Stadium is now a state-of-the-art facility that not only provides Oklahoma State football with a unique game-day environment and a roaring home-field advantage, but also with unrivaled facilities for daily operations located in incredibly convenient proximities. It put OSU on the cutting edge of collegiate facilities, and the Cowboys still enjoy the home-field advantage that suffocates opponents with the tightest sidelines in all of football.

The West End Zone houses a multilevel football operations center that includes sparkling football offices, meeting rooms, speed, strength and conditioning center, locker rooms, equipment room, athletic medicine center, media facilities and hall of fame areas, along with a training table. Atop the facility, Boone Pickens Stadium is ringed by 123 suites and 3,500 club seats.

Oklahoma State Athletics began a multi-year, $55 million upgrade to the seating bowl of the stadium after the 2022 season that was completed for the 2024 season. The upgrades included replacing seating treads and risers to increase leg room by six inches. New vomitories and additional aisles were constructed to reduce the number of seats between aisles, and all aisles had handrails installed.

All bench seating was replaced with the same contoured bench currently in place in the West End Zone. In addition, several sections replaced bench seating to add permanent chair-back seats. Wheelchair and companion seating were also added to the upper cross aisle and lighting on the plaza (entry) level was replaced with new LED lighting.

Now, for the first time since Boone Pickens Stadium was brought to its current configuration, fans have access to premium field-level seating as part of new game day enhancements for 2025.

Two other new seating options are coming as well – expanded seating in the east end zone and modernized chairbacks available in most areas of the stadium. The expanded seating in the east end zone comes after that section sold out in 2024.

After the recent stadium upgrades, the capacity for the 2025 season is 52,168.

Season tickets are still available and start as low as $500 (plus fees) for all seven home games. Select locations are limited. Season tickets and single-game tickets can be purchased online at www.okstate.com/tickets or by calling or texting 877-ALL-4-OSU.