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.
 

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UofL is investing its $20.5M in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball.

• Louisville athletics director Josh Heird told The Courier Journal Louisville is investing in the following programs: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball.
• Athletes from UofL’s other 18 sports will not receive any revenue-sharing money.

Welcome to the revenue-sharing era of college sports.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House vs. NCAA settlement in June, allowing schools to pay athletes directly starting July 1 with a per-institution cap of $20.5 million. That cap is set to increase annually by 4%. While opting in was ultimately optional, all current members of the traditional “Power Conferences” (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) did, according to a list published by the College Sports Commission — a new entity overseeing compliance with rules around revenue sharing, name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and roster limits established by the settlement.

Louisville athletics director Josh Heird sat down with The Courier Journal to discuss U of L’s approach to this new system. When asked how the department is dividing its $20.5 million budget among 23 varsity sports in 2025-26, Heird said Louisville is investing in the following programs: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball. Athletes from U of L’s other 18 sports will not receive any revenue-sharing money.

Heird did not answer how much of the $20.5 million is going into each sport, but he did say he approached each allocation with “ranges,” as opposed to rigid numbers. No coach feels like their program got a big enough slice, but that’s to be expected. From Heird’s perspective, it’s about what’s best for the athletics department as a whole. When football, men’s basketball and now women’s basketball — with the advent of an NCAA Tournament prize fund — succeed, that means more resources for Louisville athletics as a whole.

“It was more like, let’s try to, for lack of better terms, look at this as one team,” Heird said. “… If there’s an opportunity from another coach that says, ‘Hey, could we do something here from a rev-share standpoint,’ (we’re) willing to have that conversation. But for all intents and purposes, it’s those five programs.”

During a University of Louisville Athletics Association budget workshop meeting in May, Heird shared that implementing the terms of the House settlement would have about a $22 million impact on U of L’s budget. There’s the $20.5 million cap, $450,000 in additional operating costs and $1 million in reduced revenue from the NCAA as part of the $2.8 billion in backpay due to athletes who could not profit off their NIL between 2016-Sept. 15, 2024.

Louisville is in a relatively unique position.

Every school has to balance the checkbook by feeding its money-making sports more than the ones that don’t generate revenue. And for most schools that have shared their budgetary breakdown, that means dumping 75% into football, 15% into men’s basketball, 5% into women’s basketball and 5% to everybody else.

That’s what Georgia is doing. And Texas. Texas Tech decided on 74% for football, 17-18% for men’s basketball, 2% on women’s basketball, 1.9% on baseball and the rest on other sports.

Louisville, though, is a basketball town. More so than Athens, Georgia, or any Texas town, where football is king. U of L is in a class with Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina (though that one is a little more complicated now that eight-time Super Bowl winning Bill Belichick is head football coach). In those communities, gridiron gains are greatly appreciated and undoubtedly profitable but don’t carry the same cultural weight as NCAA Tournament triumphs.

So Heird and his staff have to navigate a world where Louisville football is on the rise, eyeing ACC championships, College Football Playoff berths and all the extra cash that comes with each achievement; where men’s basketball is poised, in the eyes of some, to make its long awaited return to the Final Four; where women’s basketball is a consistent NCAA Tournament player; oh, and where volleyball and baseball are competing for national championships.

So how does one reckon with all of that?

“It’s a challenge,” Heird said. “… There’s always been some push and pull there relative to investment, but there’s more now. But if football and basketball for us aren’t successful, then everybody’s resources are going to get reduced. I think that’s what you’re really trying to reconcile. How do we make sure that we can provide the most resources to all of our programs?”

When considering how to allocate the inaugural revenue-sharing budget, Heird and his team weighed three main factors:

• Return on investment: Football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball are relevant here. In addition to cash flow opportunities from CFP appearances, the ACC’s new revenue-sharing model will distribute 40% of TV money evenly among the league’s 14 most longstanding members — which includes Louisville. The other 60% will be distributed based on football and men’s basketball ratings from the past five years. Men’s and women’s basketball also offer units for participation in the NCAA Tournament. Lots of opportunities to recoup costs and help fund Louisville’s other 20 sports.
• External impact of success, or good PR: A trip to the Men’s College World Series or a spot in the women’s volleyball national championship doesn’t equate to big paydays, but it does shine a positive light on U of L athletics. More so than a top-25 team finish at the NCAA outdoor track & field championship, as both Louisville’s men’s and women’s squads achieved this summer. Cardinals baseball saw a 27% year-over-year increase in social media impressions from 2024 (when the team didn’t make the NCAA Tournament) to 2025 (when U of L played four games in the MCWS), according to Learfield. The 2024 volleyball national championship between Louisville and Penn State drew 1.3 million viewers, peaking at 1.9 million, according to ESPN. Viewership and visibility are key.
• Coaching staffs with a proven track records: Last year, Jeff Brohm became the first Louisville football coach to win 19 games over two seasons since 2014. Pat Kelsey led the men’s basketball program to one of college basketball’s largest ever single-year turnarounds in 2024-25. Jeff Walz took the women’s basketball team back to the NCAA Tournament for the 16th time in 18 years. Dan McDonnell brought baseball back to Omaha for the first time since 2019. New volleyball head coach Dan Meske served as Dani Busboom Kelly’s associate head coach from 2017-2024, leading the Cards to two national championship appearances and three Final Fours.

“We try to base it on like, ‘Hey, what’s best for us?’ Right? As opposed to playing the comparison game of, ‘Well, I heard this school is giving X, or this school is giving Y.'”

Louisville, and other universities across the country, can use “true NIL deals” to work above the $20.5 million cap. Heird said he’s spent a lot of his time lately re-educating donors. They got accustomed to the old system, where pay-for-play payments reached athletes via collectives. But with the CSC-monitored clearinghouse NILGo, to which deals exceeding $600 have to be submitted and approved, those type of payments won’t fly.

“I talked to a group of donors last week,” Heird said, “and I just told them, ‘Look, guys, I wake up and there’s days that I’m not 100% sure what’s going on. This is my every day, right? Like, I get paid to follow all this and make sure we know what’s going on. You guys are fans, right? And so you know probably a 10th of what’s going on.'”

Rather than scrambling to keep up with ever-changing rules and regulations, federal legislation proposed by Congress and executive orders from the White House, Heird advises his donors to stick to authentic NIL agreements. What companies or corporations are interested in paying one or more athletes to promote a business or product? At this current juncture, those types of agreements feel the safest.

On the CSC and new system as a whole, Heird said:

“Do I think it’s gone as expected? Yes, as long as you expected that there was gonna be bumps in the road. And if anybody thought this was gonna be seamless, then joke’s on them. At the end of the day, as you’re trying to make the biggest adjustments that an industry has ever seen, if you don’t have this expectation that it’s going to be a little rocky, then you’re going to be disappointed.

“… We got a long way to go. And it’s not going to be six months from now. This is going to be a slow process, but hopefully in two or three years, it’s like, ‘Hey, we really have a good understanding of how college athletics is going to operate in the future.”

Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.

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UofL is investing its $20.5M in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball.

• Louisville athletics director Josh Heird told The Courier Journal Louisville is investing in the following programs: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball.
• Athletes from UofL’s other 18 sports will not receive any revenue-sharing money.

Welcome to the revenue-sharing era of college sports.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House vs. NCAA settlement in June, allowing schools to pay athletes directly starting July 1 with a per-institution cap of $20.5 million. That cap is set to increase annually by 4%. While opting in was ultimately optional, all current members of the traditional “Power Conferences” (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) did, according to a list published by the College Sports Commission — a new entity overseeing compliance with rules around revenue sharing, name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and roster limits established by the settlement.

Louisville athletics director Josh Heird sat down with The Courier Journal to discuss U of L’s approach to this new system. When asked how the department is dividing its $20.5 million budget among 23 varsity sports in 2025-26, Heird said Louisville is investing in the following programs: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball and baseball. Athletes from U of L’s other 18 sports will not receive any revenue-sharing money.

Heird did not answer how much of the $20.5 million is going into each sport, but he did say he approached each allocation with “ranges,” as opposed to rigid numbers. No coach feels like their program got a big enough slice, but that’s to be expected. From Heird’s perspective, it’s about what’s best for the athletics department as a whole. When football, men’s basketball and now women’s basketball — with the advent of an NCAA Tournament prize fund — succeed, that means more resources for Louisville athletics as a whole.

“It was more like, let’s try to, for lack of better terms, look at this as one team,” Heird said. “… If there’s an opportunity from another coach that says, ‘Hey, could we do something here from a rev-share standpoint,’ (we’re) willing to have that conversation. But for all intents and purposes, it’s those five programs.”

During a University of Louisville Athletics Association budget workshop meeting in May, Heird shared that implementing the terms of the House settlement would have about a $22 million impact on U of L’s budget. There’s the $20.5 million cap, $450,000 in additional operating costs and $1 million in reduced revenue from the NCAA as part of the $2.8 billion in backpay due to athletes who could not profit off their NIL between 2016-Sept. 15, 2024.

Louisville is in a relatively unique position.

Every school has to balance the checkbook by feeding its money-making sports more than the ones that don’t generate revenue. And for most schools that have shared their budgetary breakdown, that means dumping 75% into football, 15% into men’s basketball, 5% into women’s basketball and 5% to everybody else.

That’s what Georgia is doing. And Texas. Texas Tech decided on 74% for football, 17-18% for men’s basketball, 2% on women’s basketball, 1.9% on baseball and the rest on other sports.

Louisville, though, is a basketball town. More so than Athens, Georgia, or any Texas town, where football is king. U of L is in a class with Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina (though that one is a little more complicated now that eight-time Super Bowl winning Bill Belichick is head football coach). In those communities, gridiron gains are greatly appreciated and undoubtedly profitable but don’t carry the same cultural weight as NCAA Tournament triumphs.

So Heird and his staff have to navigate a world where Louisville football is on the rise, eyeing ACC championships, College Football Playoff berths and all the extra cash that comes with each achievement; where men’s basketball is poised, in the eyes of some, to make its long awaited return to the Final Four; where women’s basketball is a consistent NCAA Tournament player; oh, and where volleyball and baseball are competing for national championships.

So how does one reckon with all of that?

“It’s a challenge,” Heird said. “… There’s always been some push and pull there relative to investment, but there’s more now. But if football and basketball for us aren’t successful, then everybody’s resources are going to get reduced. I think that’s what you’re really trying to reconcile. How do we make sure that we can provide the most resources to all of our programs?”

When considering how to allocate the inaugural revenue-sharing budget, Heird and his team weighed three main factors:

• Return on investment: Football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball are relevant here. In addition to cash flow opportunities from CFP appearances, the ACC’s new revenue-sharing model will distribute 40% of TV money evenly among the league’s 14 most longstanding members — which includes Louisville. The other 60% will be distributed based on football and men’s basketball ratings from the past five years. Men’s and women’s basketball also offer units for participation in the NCAA Tournament. Lots of opportunities to recoup costs and help fund Louisville’s other 20 sports.
• External impact of success, or good PR: A trip to the Men’s College World Series or a spot in the women’s volleyball national championship doesn’t equate to big paydays, but it does shine a positive light on U of L athletics. More so than a top-25 team finish at the NCAA outdoor track & field championship, as both Louisville’s men’s and women’s squads achieved this summer. Cardinals baseball saw a 27% year-over-year increase in social media impressions from 2024 (when the team didn’t make the NCAA Tournament) to 2025 (when U of L played four games in the MCWS), according to Learfield. The 2024 volleyball national championship between Louisville and Penn State drew 1.3 million viewers, peaking at 1.9 million, according to ESPN. Viewership and visibility are key.
• Coaching staffs with a proven track records: Last year, Jeff Brohm became the first Louisville football coach to win 19 games over two seasons since 2014. Pat Kelsey led the men’s basketball program to one of college basketball’s largest ever single-year turnarounds in 2024-25. Jeff Walz took the women’s basketball team back to the NCAA Tournament for the 16th time in 18 years. Dan McDonnell brought baseball back to Omaha for the first time since 2019. New volleyball head coach Dan Meske served as Dani Busboom Kelly’s associate head coach from 2017-2024, leading the Cards to two national championship appearances and three Final Fours.

“We try to base it on like, ‘Hey, what’s best for us?’ Right? As opposed to playing the comparison game of, ‘Well, I heard this school is giving X, or this school is giving Y.'”

Louisville, and other universities across the country, can use “true NIL deals” to work above the $20.5 million cap. Heird said he’s spent a lot of his time lately re-educating donors. They got accustomed to the old system, where pay-for-play payments reached athletes via collectives. But with the CSC-monitored clearinghouse NILGo, to which deals exceeding $600 have to be submitted and approved, those type of payments won’t fly.

“I talked to a group of donors last week,” Heird said, “and I just told them, ‘Look, guys, I wake up and there’s days that I’m not 100% sure what’s going on. This is my every day, right? Like, I get paid to follow all this and make sure we know what’s going on. You guys are fans, right? And so you know probably a 10th of what’s going on.'”

Rather than scrambling to keep up with ever-changing rules and regulations, federal legislation proposed by Congress and executive orders from the White House, Heird advises his donors to stick to authentic NIL agreements. What companies or corporations are interested in paying one or more athletes to promote a business or product? At this current juncture, those types of agreements feel the safest.

On the CSC and new system as a whole, Heird said:

“Do I think it’s gone as expected? Yes, as long as you expected that there was gonna be bumps in the road. And if anybody thought this was gonna be seamless, then joke’s on them. At the end of the day, as you’re trying to make the biggest adjustments that an industry has ever seen, if you don’t have this expectation that it’s going to be a little rocky, then you’re going to be disappointed.

“… We got a long way to go. And it’s not going to be six months from now. This is going to be a slow process, but hopefully in two or three years, it’s like, ‘Hey, we really have a good understanding of how college athletics is going to operate in the future.”

Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.

Moraga, CA — [8/8/25] — In a move that reflects both foresight and care, Saint Mary’s College has partnered with Scout, a leading financial technology company designed specifically for athletes, to launch a comprehensive NIL and financial education program.

The partnership will give Saint Mary’s Athletics access to Scout’s complete platform, including customized revenue-share distribution, cap management, personalized financial literacy training, and a secure player wallet app. But more importantly, it will bring hands-on collaboration with the Scout team — helping Saint Mary’s leaders build a scalable, compliance-first NIL infrastructure that reflects the college’s mission and values.

“At Saint Mary’s, we always strive to be intentional,” said Mike Matoso, Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics. “Scout brings us not only technology, but trusted guidance and a partner who understands the importance of building systems with integrity. This is about doing right by our student-athletes, today and into the future.”

Maurisa Dominguez, Associate AD for Compliance, added: “This partnership helps us simplify the complex. With Scout, we’re able to support our athletes’ financial success while maintaining clear, structured, and fully compliant systems that align with NCAA guidelines and our institutional mission.”

“Saint Mary’s is taking a thoughtful, principled approach to NIL,” said Michael Haddix, CEO and Founder of Scout. “They’re not just adopting a platform — they’re building a framework that puts their athletes first, while staying true to the institution’s values. We’re proud to support that mission with tools, strategy, and long-term partnership.”

“We look at NIL differently at Scout — for us, it means Name, Image… Lifetime.”

 

About Scout

Scout is a financial technology company built specifically for athletes. Combining education, one-on-one support, and a mobile app, Scout helps student-athletes navigate taxes, savings, LLC formation, and investment planning. Its customizable revenue distribution platform supports athletic departments, coaches, and athletes with transparency, security, and long-term strategic guidance.

Learn more at www.scoutftw.com

Media Inquiries: media@elevatewith.com

#GaelsRise

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – When you are nine practices into fall training camp, sometimes the days begin to run together.

Wednesday might actually be Thursday, or Thursday is really Friday, so on and so forth. Well, today is Friday, a light morning for the Mountaineers in shorts and shoulder pads up on the Steve Antoline Family Practice field consisting mostly of situational and end-of-half, end-of-game work.

Coach Rich Rodriguez, the first West Virginia football coach to talk to media after every fall training camp practice since Rich Rodriguez used to do it when he was last here in 2007, has arrived at the point in August when the questions he’s getting are becoming somewhat repetitive. 

More of the same was coming his way until about 13 minutes into today’s media session when the Blue & Gold News‘ Greg Hunter pitched him a straight change-up, soft and right down the middle.

“You had a couple of guys transfer from Jacksonville State a few years ago,” Hunter began, “so, did you have to have a conversation with them saying, ‘I don’t hold it against you (for leaving us).'”

Rodriguez’s eyes lit up and a smile formed on his face.

“I think I saw (junior offensive lineman Xavier) Bausley first, and I said, ‘Hey Xavier, I’m back! Now are you going to leave again?'” he laughed. “We had a big chuckle about that.”

Then, the coach told us a great Xavier Bausley story.

“He’s a West Virginia kid (from Dunbar). While we were recruiting him at Jax State, when we are (talking to prospects) we have them fill out a form and one of the questions asks them to tell us something unique that we might want to know about them,” Rodriguez said.

“Well, he wrote, ‘My dad took all of Rich Rodriguez‘s West Virginia pictures and stuff in 2007 and lit them on fire, cussing him out (after the coach left West Virginia for Michigan).’ I had a good laugh with his father about that,” Rodriguez said. “I said, ‘If you wouldn’t have burned all of my stuff you might have had some West Virginia stuff right now!'”

Senior safety Kekoura Tarnue also transferred to West Virginia from Jacksonville State two years ago and wound up reuniting with Rodriguez and some of his Gamecocks teammates when the coach returned to WVU last December.

Tarnue considers the reunion a blessing.

“Just having my old coach back, having a coach who understands me and just being a part of his program again, how he pushes players and how he pushed me when I first got there,” the senior safety explained. “To me, it was a little bit of excitement and some unfinished business left to do.”

Tarnue said his primary reason for leaving Rodriguez and the Jacksonville State program two years ago was simply to play power four football.

“To me, he’s probably the best coach I’ve ever played for because of seeing just how much he gets out of his players and how much he pushes you day in and day out – not just on the football field, but just being a better person off the field,” Tarnue admitted.

The Monrovia, Liberia, native thought 2024 was going to be his final year of college football and when he found out that he had another season of eligibility, he called Rodriguez up to see if there was still a spot for him on the WVU roster for this season.

“I said, ‘Hey coach, I want to come back and play for you’ and he said, ‘Come on, let’s do it,'” Tarnue said. “That’s pretty much it.”

There are currently eight former Jacksonville State players on the updated fall roster the Athletics Communications Office handed out this afternoon. Rodriguez mentioned on Thursday that Noel Devine‘s son Andre will be No. 9. 

Among them is former Martinsburg High speedster Jarod Bowie, whose college football career began at Division II Concord.

“After the bowl game (against Ohio University), I heard some good things (about Rodriguez returning to WVU) and I was like, ‘This is my shot to go home,'” he said. “It’s a dream come true. It was the best thing to ever happen to me.

“It’s cool for us to all be back together again and continue the brotherhood we had at Jax State,” Bowie explained. “He’s a great coach, and I love him to death. He runs his organization very, very well.”

Bowie also has a deep love for Mountaineer football going back to his high school days, driving across Interstate 68 from Martinsburg to Morgantown to watch games in Milan Puskar Stadium. 

“It’s crazy because when I was like 16 and playing at Martinsburg, I used to come up here for every home game and watch David Sills and the boys play (in 2018),” he recalled. “I used to be right there, and after the game walk down and sing (“Take Me Home, Country Roads”) with them. It’s actually beyond a blessing to strap up in the blue and gold and play for the state of West Virginia. I’ve always wanted to live that.”

Rodriguez also considers himself fortunate to have all of the Jacksonville State players continue their college careers with him here at West Virginia. 

“All those guys, obviously we know them, and a couple of years ago, the guys on defense played for coach (Zac) Alley and the offensive guys should know the system, they should understand it, and they’ve done a good job,” he said. “They are going to help us win.”

The coach said tomorrow’s closed scrimmage will take place inside the stadium. Afterward, Rodriguez and defensive coordinator Alley will be available to talk to the media.

No on-field activities are scheduled for Sunday.