Oklahoma Sooners among the top 24 fanbases in FanSided’s NCAA Fandom 250
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma Sooners fans are among the most passionate and fiercely loyal of any college fanbase anywhere in the country.
Fansided’s Fandom 250 recognizes and ranks the best fanbases in several sports and entertainment categories. Oklahoma Sooners fans are among the top 24 in the NCAA category of the Fandom 250. At the moment, the 24 college fanbases are unranked. That’s where you, the fans, come in.
FanSided readers are being asked to participate in a Reader Vote that will rank the 24 college fanbases, Oklahoma Sooner fans have the chance to vote and tell the FanSided editors why their fanbase is the best in the country
“If you build it, they will come,” is a famous line from the popular 1989 sports fantasy film “Field of Dreams.” That is exactly what they have done at the University of Oklahoma, building and sustaining one of the most accomplished and nationally recognized college football programs.
In a sports commentary headlined “The Grapes of Wrath at Oklahoma,” New York Times columnist Ira Berkow recalled an incident in the early 1950s, after OU had won its first national championship, when then-University of Oklahoma president Dr. George L. Cross was making a budget request to the Oklahoma Legislature. During the presentation, one of the state senators on the appropriations committee attempted to change the subject, asking, “That’s all well and good, but what kind of football team are we going to have this year?” Cross’ response: “We want to build a university our football team can be proud of.”
Dr. Cross’ comment was made in jest, but it underscored the importance and interest placed on Oklahoma football at that time, and it has only gotten bigger and stronger from there.
Oklahoma Sooners Football
It is easy to be a fan and supporter of a winning program, and Oklahoma football has been all of that and more over the last seven decades.
Beginning with Bud Wilkinson’s monster teams of the 1950s (three national championships and an unprecedented 47-game winning streak) and continuing right on through 18 highly successful seasons under Bob Stoops after the turn of the millennium, no college program has won more games than the Sooners.
Oklahoma owns seven national championships, 46 conference championships (including 10 in the 21-year history of the Big 12), and since the end of World War II (1946 to the present) has won 636 games, over 40 more than the closest challenger (Alabama with 591 wins over the same span).
Football is king at the University of Oklahoma, and, with a track record like the Sooners, it’s easy to understand why fans have been coming by the droves. And not just talking about the 80,000-plus that show up at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium every game day. (This Saturday will mark the 115th consecutive sellout, over 19 seasons, at an OU home game.) Oklahoma has had success, including national championships, in a number of other collegiate sports (men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s gymnastics, and men’s golf, to name a few).
Headed by football, OU athletic programs are a national brand, and the fanbase is widely dispersed throughout all parts of the country and even outside of the continental United States.
If Dr. Cross were around today, perhaps he would alter his memorable remark to say: “We’re building a university our fans will remain forever proud of.”