The numbers

"416 straight sellouts" answers one question: did the tickets get sold? It gets heard as the answer to a different one: are the fans still there? The university's own release says fans "have filled Memorial Stadium since 1962."¹³ The last comparison we could read in full covered 29 home games from 2016 through 2019: 2,508,661 announced, 2,012,724 scanned, about 80%. Nebraska says announced figures also include staff, media, bands, and others.³⁵ That gap is worth closing, for a few reasons.

• False comfort. A sellout every week lets a program, and everyone reading its press releases, skip the uncomfortable question. Fans can drift away for years while the streak stays perfect.
• Big decisions rest on demand. The stadium plan is $600 million, with at least $250 million in gifts and $350 million in private bonds, and it projects $95 million a year in revenue.¹³ Regents, donors, and lenders should all want the clearest picture of who's actually showing up, and at what price.
• Customers deserve the price tag. If you paid full price and the next seat went for a voucher, a coupon, or a booster's $10,^{3, 7} that's useful to know before you renew.
• It's a public university, and this has been done before. A TV station got the scans with a records request.³⁵ Publishing them would save everybody the paperwork.
• Everyone gets the same scoreboard. Without it, nobody can tell whether interest is rising or falling, including us. We'd rather be checked than believed.

And if the numbers are good, this is free. Strong scans would knock out one of this site's best arguments, and we'd link to them right here.

Fair point: scans don't count everyone in the building, weather happens, and a no-show still paid. We aren't saying anyone has misled anyone. We're saying "sold" and "there" are two different numbers, and only one of them gets a banner.

A sellout means tickets sold. Attendance isn't part of it. Some things worth knowing:

• Three 2020 home games with no tickets sold don't count toward the streak, and neither does a canceled 2018 game. They also didn't break it.⁹
• ESPN reported in 2021 that held tickets used to count even if unsold, and that boosters or sponsors sometimes bought leftovers.⁶
• As of Aug. 10, 2026, Nebraska had about 72,000 tickets sold for the Indiana and Ohio State games, about 10,000 short of a sellout.⁴ Other reports describe the gap as per game.⁷
• The count kept going: Washington on Oct. 31 was billed as No. 416.¹ We found no sellout announcement yet for Ohio State; the official schedule still shows "Buy Tickets."²
• Up to 20,000 South Stadium seats come out for 2027, and the finished stadium will seat about 80,000.^{10, 13}

What we don't have: how many tickets in each 2026 "sellout," if any, were discounted or bought in bulk, and how many people came through the gates this year. Nebraska does. We'd like to see them.

A note on the count, for anyone who brought a pencil. You'll see lower counts in some coverage, including 29 after the 2025 USC game,³² and 31 after the 2026 Indiana game.^{33, 34} We count 33, and every game is below. Our list matches a published table of 32 losses through 2025³¹ (it has 2024 Illinois at No. 22, where season records show No. 24), plus Indiana in 2026.² Rankings are the AP's at game time, and don't count the Coaches Poll. Oregon and Washington weren't in the AP poll when they beat Nebraska this year.^{2, 37, 36, 21} If we missed something, tell us, and we'll fix it and say so.

• Twenty years would be unfair: Nebraska won plenty from 2006 to 2016. The trouble began around 2017, which is why we start there.²⁷
• Nebraska has back-to-back winning seasons, and its last three losses this year were by three, three, and seven.²
• Nebraska doesn't subsidize athletics with tax, tuition, or student fee dollars,¹² which is to its credit, and which is also why fans' decisions matter.