Sellout Streak Survives a Difficult Season

All Nebraska-Wisconsin football tickets are sold, but there are bargains galore on the resale market

Joe Hudson | Nov 17, 2022

All Huskers illustration; photo © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY Network

In this story:

When Memorial Stadium's 100th season wraps up on Saturday, Nebraska football's home sellout streak will still be chugging along at 60-plus years and 389 games.

The Huskers' home finale against Wisconsin was listed as sold out early Thursday afternoon on the Nebraska Athletics ticket site. Just an hour earlier, about 70 seats remained unsold, so it appears several dozen tickets were purchased in bulk to secure sellout status.

Three weeks ago, it seemed a Wisconsin-Nebraska sellout was a lock with just 50 tickets unsold. Then things got a little weird, probably due to returned tickets from the Badgers' allotment. From 50, the number of available seats shot up to nearly 100, then shrank gradually to under 30, then popped back up to 100 just two days ago.

The apparent bulk sale Thursday of the final 70 tickets is a repeat of what happened in the days leading up to the Minnesota game two weeks ago and the Illinois game in late October.

On the resale market, the game between the 3-7 Huskers and the 5-5 Badgers is shaping up as the biggest bargain of Nebraska's home football season. A few tickets are listed at under $10 (plus fees), and some club-level seats can be had for under the $80 face value. The average price Thursday on SI Tickets was $61, down from $103 for the Minnesota game and $124 for the Illinois game.

Nebraska football's NCAA-record home sellout streak began in early November of 1962 during Bob Devaney's first season as head coach. The 1962 Kansas State game, played during the Cuban Missile Crisis, was the last to come up short of sellout status.

After Saturday's game against Wisconsin, the Huskers will finish the season on the road against Iowa. The next test of the sellout streak's longevity will come next September. That's when Nebraska hosts Northern Illinois, Louisiana Tech and Michigan on consecutive Saturdays after opening the season with road games against Minnesota and Colorado.

Get your Huskers tickets from SI Tickets here.

Published Nov 17, 2022

JOE HUDSON

Joe Hudson has operated a Husker-related website since 1995 and joined forces with David Max to form HuskerPedia (later renamed HuskerMax) in 1999. It began as a hobby during his 35 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, a career that included stints at the Lincoln Star, Omaha World-Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Denver Post. In Denver, Joe was chief of the copy desk during his final 16 years at the Post. He is proud to have been involved in Pulitzer Prize-winning projects in both Philadelphia and Denver. Joe has been a Nebraska football fan since the mid-1960s during his childhood in Omaha. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in journalism and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1976. He resides a few freeway exits north of Colorado Springs and enjoys bicycling and walking his dogs in his spare time. You can reach him at joeroyhud@outlook.com.