`Wearing orange and cheering from home'
Limited frustration as OSU reduces its football season-ticket capacity
Janis Hutson Reeser went to her first OSU football game when she was 5.
Among her fondest childhood memories are being in Stillwater for games with her dad. Her parents had season tickets for more than 50 years, and now, Reeser i s starting to push into their territory, having had season tickets for more than 35 years herself.
South side. Twenty- yard line. Midway up.
“Nothing is better than a fall afternoon in Boone Pickens Stadium,” she said.
But Reeser won't be enjoyi ng any i n the stadium this s eason af t er opti ng out of her tickets. She felt too much uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“If I did go to the game,” she said, “it would be tempting to socialize more than is safe to do.”
On the day OSU opens its season at home against Tulsa, Reeser will be among about 23,500 season-ticket holders watching from afar. That is
nearly three- quarters of all season-ticket holders. That kind of cut had to happen to get to 25% capacity in the stadium, but even as OSU whittled down the number of season-ticket holders who would get seats, the process created very few frustrated fans.
“It's been very positive,” OSU associate athletic director for ticket operations and fan service Andy Sum ra ll said of season- ticket holders' emotions. “Even when they've opted out, i t's still been positive.”
Anecdotal evidence from social media and fan feedback backs that up.
Frustration is not high, and in a season with sky-high expectations for the Cowboys, you would think the opposite could be true.
So, how did OSU manage to not have scores of disappointed season-ticket holders?
When OSU decided to limit capacity to 25%, about 50% of the roughly 32,000 seasonticket holders said they were opting out. That still left OSU with 16,000 season-ticket requests when it only had room for about 8,500.
Sumrall said OSU wanted to be as equitable as possible.
“Rather than having a few accounts with a lot of tickets,” he said, “we'd rather have a lot of accounts with fewer tickets to try to get everybody that wanted to come.”
OSU decided to limit each account to a maximum of six seats.
That cut the total back to 10,800.
OSU then allowed seasonticket holders togo online and select their seats from a socially distanced grid. They had to choose a block of seats consistent with their total number of tickets. An account with two tickets, for example, couldn't take two seats in a block of four.
As that process went, many fans found seats to their liking.
Some did not — and they opted out.
In the end, season- ticket holders who aren't getting seats this season made that choice, and that seems to have limited frustration.
“They've really adapted,” Sumrall said of Cowboy fans. “In previous years, if something had happened where they've lost a ticket or didn't have their exact locations, it would've been the end of the world. Whereas this year, they understand this is a different year.
“They're willing to do what it takes because they're loyal and true and stick with OSU no matter what.”
The most angst, though Sum ra ll said even it was minimal, came when OSU announced season tickets would not be refunded once the season began no matter how many games were played. If the pandemic knocked out a couple home games or even derailed the season completely, season-ticket holders would pay for the entire season.
David Be all opted out because of that policy. He has been to every home game since 2003. He has been a seasonticket holder since the Les Miles era, and soon after the south side was renovated, he moved to Section 210 where he' s been for more than a decade.
“We always make jokes that they sat us all together on purpose so we could only annoy each other,” the Silver City resident said. “But we've become a family.”
Beall will miss that bunch. But he couldn't risk buying season tickets that wouldn't be refunded if the season went sideways.
“I do plan on buying them again next season,” Beall said, “and will go to as many games as I can this season if I can get reasonable tickets through the resale sites.”
Mo Shanks is one of the season-ticket holders who decided to keep his seats even with the uncertainty. He hasn't missed more than one or two games since 1982, his freshman year at OSU, but still, he thought long and hard about going to games this season.
“Worried mostly of the safety on game day,” the Tulsa resident said.
But the more Shanks learned about protocols — contactless tickets, mandatory masks, six feet between seats — he decided togo through the process of selecting seats. If he could get close to the seats he's had in Section 107, he would keep his tickets.
“I was quite surprised I didn't have to move that far,” he said, adding that he'll be in the same section.
Julie Norris was similarly pleased about her seat selection. She and husband Chris have had season tickets since 1989, and since 1991, they have been part of the gameday scene for many Cowboy fans as the owners of Chris' University Spirit.
But they had several conversations about whether to keep their season tickets this season.
“We did decide to opt in early based on the information at that time, that tickets would be prorated based on the number of games played,” Julie Norris said. “That policy changed, and we did rethink our position before deciding to roll the dice and keep the tickets.”
Then, after getting seats in Section 512, not far from their previous seats in 508, they decided to go.
“After watching several games on television last weekend, it will be different,” Julie said. “Not sure how I will feel once we are in there.”
Janis Hutson Reeser knows how she will feel during the game.
“It will be an empty feeling Saturday,” she said.
Even though she chose to opt out, she will miss everything about game day. Tailgating. Friends. Festivities. After all these years of going to OSU football games and having season tickets, being somewhere other than Stillwater will be strange.
But Reeser will be watching. “Wearing orange,” she said, “and cheering from home.”