The Stadium That Splits in Half Every October

Every October, more than 92,000 football fans walk past Ferris wheels and funnel cake stands to reach their seats. They are headed to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, where Texas and Oklahoma play the Red River Rivalry inside a stadium that splits exactly in half.

One Ticket, Two Colors

Game tickets are divided 50-50 between the two schools. That split runs straight through the middle of the stadium, right along the 50-yard line.

Oklahoma fans fill one half in crimson. Texas fans fill the other in burnt orange. From above, the Cotton Bowl looks less like one crowd and more like two stadiums stitched together.

A Rivalry Older Than the Split

The State Fair of Texas traces the football tradition back to 1929, when the Dallas fixture became an annual date on the calendar. The game has been played at the Cotton Bowl itself since 1932, always during the run of the fair.

Nothing about the arrangement is an accident. The stadium sits inside Fair Park, so the rivalry and the carnival have shared the same gates for nearly a century.

This Year's Kickoff

The 2026 State Fair of Texas runs September 25 through October 18. Texas and Oklahoma kick off inside it on Saturday, October 10, at 2:30 PM Central, in front of a crowd built one color at a time.

A ticket to the game also gets fans through the fair gates, so the walk to their seats runs straight past the rides.

Locked In Through 2036

The largest crowd on record was 96,009, set in 2009, 2010 and 2011, above the stadium's official capacity of 92,100. In December 2023, the schools and the State Fair signed an extension keeping the rivalry at the Cotton Bowl through 2036.

Whichever side of the 50 a fan sits on, the deal is the same every October: one gate, one field, two colors.