Oklahoma State's football team is 30-7 in its last 37 games at Boone Pickens Stadium, and at the "last available count this fall, the school has sold 47,024 season tickets -- fourth most in program history," but overall, attendance is "down an average of 2,793 from a year ago," according to Kyle Fredrickson of the OKLAHOMAN. The 3% drop has happened "one year after OSU played three of the top-10 most attended games in BPS history." While the problem is "not unique to Stillwater -- national college football attendance has declined" in five consecutive seasons -- its solution "requires new perspective." OSU coach Mike Gundy said, "It's a topic that needs to be discussed at length after the season to try and increase that." Fredrickson noted OSU alumni President Chris Batchelder and AD Mike Holder have held "forums and met with student groups to identify attendance triggers." Batchelder discovered the "rise of parking lot parties outside BPS might play a role." Batchelder said, “There are just thousands of people outside who are tailgating and not coming inside, and not just at halftime, before the game. At halftime it gets even worse." Gundy said, "We need to find a way to keep them in the game." OSU Associate AD Kevin Klintworth said, "A rising problem nationally is the length of the games and something that our fans mention to us consistently. One half of a college football game is nearing the length of an entire college basketball game. At some point, college football as a whole is going to have to address that issue" (OKLAHOMAN, 10/16).
