On3 Roundtable: Oklahoma focusing outside energy on SEC move

Leaders at Oklahoma and in Norman are putting in a lot of effort to ensure the Sooners are prepared for their move to the SEC in 2024. That doesn’t just mean on the football field or basketball court, but also what the city and university can offer to both visiting and local fans on game day.

OU’s move to the SEC will inevitably have a large economic impact on both the city and university. The SEC averaged 76,667 fans at each home game in 2022, while Oklahoma had an average attendance of 83,835 to rank 13th in the nation. With more fans expected to make their way to Norman in the coming years, the city will need more hotel rooms, restaurants and other game-day attractions.

SoonerScoop publisher Carey Murdock joined Andy Staples for an On3 Roundtable discussion where he revealed just how much energy the Sooners are exerting toward their SEC arrival.

“A lot,” he said. “It came out not too long ago, I think it was maybe an On3 report that was out there, that Texas and Oklahoma have actually had departments that were built to work with each other on the move to the SEC. That’s been going on for over a year now. The city of Norman has gotten together with the University. They took some trips to SEC destinations last year during games to see what game day was like in those areas.”

Murdock is referring to Team Norman, a group of community leaders that formed to help prepare Oklahoma for the move to the SEC. The committee features city of Norman officials, economic development specialists and marketing strategists.

Last season, the group took a visit to the SEC campuses of Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky during weeks where the Sooners were on the road. They spoke with city leaders, toured the downtown area, and, of course, took in the tailgating.

After all of their research, it was ultimately determined that Oklahoma has a lot of work to do to make sure it is up to par with some of the other SEC schools.

“We have our ‘Make Lindsey Street Great Again’ t-shirt where they’ve taken away tailgating on the south side of the stadium for years now,” Murdock said. “It’s just kind of one of those things that’s like, you don’t really have the game day atmosphere that you think you have in comparison to other places. You don’t really have as many people that are going to take as many shots in Omaha as LSU.

“It’s all of these things that’s just a little level of fanaticism that the fan base thinks they’re SEC-ready. I think the administration probably thinks they’re SEC-ready. But they’re trying to see, ‘what don’t we know?’ I think they’re spending an incredible amount of time asking that question.”

The Sooners have one of the biggest brands in all of college football and that shouldn’t. However, joining the SEC means having to compete with the likes of other historic programs such as Alabama, Georgia and LSU. Gone are the days of being assured of top-dog status in the Big 12 along with Texas.

Keeping up will mean potentially adding new attractions and opening up tailgating to make the experience more enjoyable for fans. With the measures it has put in place, Oklahoma is preparing itself to do just that.