$485m college football stadium became huge dorm during Great Depression as desperate students slept on field

As the College Football Playoff kicks off next week, the first-round home games will put the stadiums of Oklahoma, Oregon, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M in the spotlight.

And one stadium, in particular, has stood the test of time—it can be found in Norman, Oklahoma.

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The Sooners will welcome the Alabama Crimson Tide to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, famously known as ‘The Palace on the Prairie.’

The historic stadium isn’t just home to the Sooners. It’s a living monument to the history and resilience of the University of Oklahoma.

Opened in 1923, the stadium was built to honor OU students who lost their lives in World War I, a foundation that gives the venue a sense of gravitas beyond the roar of the 80,000-plus crowd.

Over the last 100 years, it has grown into one of college football’s most iconic venues, hosting legendary games and weaving itself into the very fabric of the sport.

But the stadium’s story extends far beyond football.

During the Great Depression, when economic hardship gripped the nation, Memorial Stadium became a lifeline for students struggling to afford housing.

From 1937 to 1942, makeshift dormitories were set up right on the field, with rows of students sleeping on the turf under the open sky, while others were housed in renovated rooms on the second floor.

The university paid the utility bills, a fraternity donated a stove, and OU President Bizzell provided a refrigerator.

It was the Norman community coming together and taking care of its own, not to mention the Dust Bowl that ravaged the state throughout the 1930s.

Memorial Stadium stood strong and became a beacon of hope and shelter.

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It was a stark reminder that even in times of crisis, the university community would come together, finding shelter and solidarity where cheers and touchdowns would normally dominate.

As the years went on, Memorial Stadium expanded and modernized, transforming from a simple field with minimal seating into a massive arena capable of holding over 80,000 fans.

On November 11, 2017, Oklahoma Memorial Stadium welcomed a record-setting 88,308 fans, the largest crowd ever to attend a football game in Oklahoma, as Coach Lincoln Riley’s Sooners defeated TCU 38-20.

Yet even as it grew and grew, the stadium retained its symbolic heart and what made it a special place to begin with.

And while there’s no official price tag or valuation on Memorial Stadium, the numbers and dollars that have been poured into it over years paint a pretty clear picture.

The Sooners’ home has undergone nearly a century of upgrades, expansions, and modernizations, and the cost of keeping its great home among college football’s elite has skyrocketed in the last two decades.

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The biggest clue comes from the project currently on deck: Oklahoma’s west-side overhaul, a massive rebuild approved at an estimated $450 million. And that’s just one phase.

The south end-zone renovation earlier in the 2010s cost another $160 million, while the early-2000s upper-deck and press-box expansion added roughly $54 million more.

Layer in decades of previous construction and improvements, plus the enormous value of the land itself, and the picture becomes obvious.

You won’t find a “market value” for the stadium listed in any public documents, but based on its replacement cost and the investments poured into it, Memorial Stadium almost certainly sits in the high hundreds of millions.

In other words, the Sooners play in one of the most valuable and continuously evolving cathedrals in all of college football.

And it will be on full display when these two historic titans of the sport clash in Round One of the College Football Playoff.