Canzano: Oregon zeroes in on Autzen Stadium upgrade
Ohio State crowd may break records.
Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens told me on Thursday that his athletic department is knee-deep in the exploration of premium-seating upgrades and improvements to Autzen Stadium that could also add “a few thousand” seats to the venue.
Said Mullens: “We have great club seats. We have outstanding suites. But there are other new products that people are interested in and we probably need to meet that demand.”
Oregon’s Oct. 12 game against Ohio State is sold out. Standing-room-only tickets are gone, too. A Grand Prix car race drew 63,000 fans in 1993 and holds the state attendance record for a live sporting event. The largest crowd to ever see a football game in state history came in the Chip Kelly era (60,055 at Autzen Stadium vs. Arizona State, 2011).
Could the Ohio State game break 61,000?
Or 63,000?
Just how big could the crowd be when the Buckeyes visit?
“It could be as big as we want it to be,” Mullens joked, ‘but we’ve got to make sure the fire marshal is good with where we are.”