Stanford softball breaks NCAA attendance record with 'Big Swing' game in football stadium (2025)

Stanford has entered its name into the conversation for the softball capital of America.

On Saturday, the Cardinal broke the NCAA softball single-game attendance record with 13,207 spectators at “The Big Swing” game against Cal. It dethroned the two-game Session 2 of the 2024 Women’s College World Series, which also featured Stanford. The Cardinal also shattered the regular-season attendance record of 9,259, previously set by Oklahoma-Oklahoma State's game earlier this month.

Although Stanford fell to Cal 10-8, the Cardinal and Golden Bears put on a high-scoring show with three home runs each.

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"It was like a mini-World Series experience," said junior outfielder Kyra Chan. "That was the last time we had that many fans, so it was nice to have people rooting for Stanford."

What separates this record from the field is, in fact, the field. While its new $50 million stadium is being built on campus, the softball team’s home base for the 2024-25 season is the university’s football stadium.

It was an expensive undertaking to get a softball field installed on Stanford Stadium's natural-grass field, but one that made the most sense over relocating to smaller, off-campus options.

"It feels like a normal but amazing ballpark," said graduate outfielder Caelan Koch. "There's no place I'd rather be playing, it's just an awesome experience."

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With its crowd capacity temporarily increased from 3,500 to over 50,000, head softball coach Jessica Allister said the record-breaking opportunity presented itself organically.

“The Cal series feels like a natural fit,” Allister told ESPN. “Two Bay Area teams seems really obvious. Two great softball teams. It's going to be a beautiful time of the year on a Saturday afternoon. It's perfect timing."

Cal softball played its own role in breaking the record by promoting the game to the larger Bay Area community, leaning into a historic rivalry between the two universities. The Golden Bears fans that watched were treated to an upset win.

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"We're Bay Area proud and strong, and this just means so much in front of 13,000 people," Cal senior captain Kaylee Pond said on the broadcast postgame.

Stanford launched “The Big Swing” campaign to turn the record-breaking effort into a fun experience for fans. The university’s spring sports festival "Cardinalpalooza" took place outside the football stadium before the first pitch, then carried inside the gates with activities like inflatable bounce houses, batting and speed cages, and a 360 degree photo booth.

“We don’t get to play in a stadium with this large of a capacity often and may never again,” Stanford assistant director of communications Kevin Bass said. “We owe it to both our student-athletes and fans to pull out all the stops and make it a top-of-the-line experience. Carnival games, the band, food trucks, anything we can do to make The Farm the place to be today.”

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Fans could see former NFL quarterback and current Stanford football general manager Andrew Luck throw out the first pitch and take home free commemorative “Big Swing” T-shirts.

Stanford softball joins a small but impressive list of record-breaking women’s college events held in football stadiums. In August 2023, Nebraska volleyball set the record for the largest crowd at a women’s sporting event in the United States. A few months later in October, Caitlin Clark and Iowa hosted “Crossover at Kinnick.”

"I think that you see a consistent theme that there aren't big enough venues for women's sports to be able to draw the fans that they can draw," said Allister. "Hopefully, a lot of people who showed up to Stanford for the first time to watch a softball game will come back and see us in our beautiful stadium."