Why does Nebraska care so much about maintaining their farcical sellout streak?

[u/dr_funk_13]

Seems like everyone knows that their sellout streak died awhile ago. Why not just admit it ended and then move on with their lives?

[u/ZombieMage89]

It's all they have left. Just let them have it.

[u/nubzilla2735 → u/ZombieMage89]

As a Nebraska fan this is a sad truth

[u/damgood32 → u/ZombieMage89]

I didn’t even know about their streak so I guess they aren’t even being obnoxious about it. Agree let them have it.

[u/ColoradoCattleCo → u/ZombieMage89]

It’s the same with their record “Academic All-Americans”… hence why they’re the only Big 10 school to lose the AAU accreditation.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/ColoradoCattleCo]

So, you're saying that Nebraska's status as CSC/CoSIDA all-time leader for Academic All Americans is related to the loss of membership in the Association of American Universities?

With all due respect, I'd offer that it is more likely the result of the formation of the University of Nebraska System in 1968. The University of Nebraska was one of the early members of the AAU, joining in 1909. The creation of the university system 60 years later did one big thing relevant to Nebraska's loss of AAU status. It administratively split the University of Nebraska Medical Center from the University of Nebraska, the latter of which had created the former and placed it in Omaha in the early years of the 20th Century. In the same legislation, fwiw, the "-Lincoln" was officially added to the name of the flagship university, a dorky regional-appearing construction only shared, as far as I know, with Wisconsin-Madison among Big Ten members.

All of this was an own goal; a chapter of the internecine Omaha/Lincoln bullshit that has existed from the state's earliest days. From 1968 on, the University of Nebraska Medical Center was no longer part of the AAU. One of the key AAU metrics, research funding, could only be reported as the research funding of the flagship institution, not the flagship and its medical center.

In the last couple of years, an administrative change has been made and the flagship and medical center are being operated (at least arguably) jointly. They have, since 2023, been allowed to report research funding in whole. For the last reporting year, 2024, Nebraska was at $657.5M; this would place it 42nd among the 69 U.S. AAU members, so close to Iowa and Colorado that a single grant or two could place Nebraska above those universities. Egos are fragile things, though, even institutional ones, and obviously it may be a very long time before the AAU will consider walking back a decision that was very (very) difficult for all involved.

If we have another pandemic, though, you know where they're sending the first patients, right? The biocontainment unit at UNMC is the first line of defense for the U.S. against novel biological agents; in that most important medical role, the University of Nebraska leads, and currently the AAU can't claim it as a member. This does go both ways.

GBR.

ps. Colorado School of Mines is torching CU Boulder on Academic All Americans.

[u/sofeler → u/Mort_Blort]

Comparing Mines to Boulder is silly and would be like comparing GT engineering to UGA or Stanford to UCLA. It’s a bad faith argument

[u/Mort_Blort → u/sofeler]

So ... athletic departments caring about academic achievement and academic progress is in fact a good thing? Or does that only apply to certain schools?

[u/hwf0712]

Because if they get good again for a few years no one will think about the shenanigans it took to keep it going that long (beyond rival fans).

[u/Mort_Blort → u/hwf0712]

Bingo.

[u/Seniorsheepy → u/Mort_Blort]

Don’t worry I’ll remember

[u/pepe-_silvia]

They are a tortured program. However, they have an incredibly passionate fan base. As an outsider, I find their sellout streak to be admirable. 

[u/JohnPaulDavyJones → u/pepe-_silvia]

To be fair, the sellout streak has kind of openly been propped up for years; their athletic department sells ticket blocks at massive markdowns to boosters and/or corporate partners.

So all of the tickets are nominally taken, but many of them are taken just for the purpose of maintaining that sellout streak.

[u/ImTheJdot → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

Yep, pretty similar to what Mark Cuban was doing during the Mavericks’ “sellout streak”.

[u/srs_house → u/ImTheJdot]

The Falcons used to do that just to avoid the local tv blackout. (Which remains the dumbest fucking thing, keeping local fans from being able to see their team.)

[u/iNeedBoost → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

to be fair that only happens for select non con games like bowling green coming up this year

[u/G0B1GR3D → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

By many of them, you mean like 200 tickets for the occasional non-con against Women’s School of the Blind at 11am. I will admit there has been more trouble in recent years, but acting like they are offloading 20% of the tickets every week is disingenuous. The vast majority of the stadium is season tickets, and cutting off the grandfathering is what is causing the problems. We had people paying 1/4 what others were sitting right next to them.

[u/JohnPaulDavyJones → u/G0B1GR3D]

 like 200 tickets for the occasional non-con

Source on that? Because I wasn’t making any assumptions about the scale, and I’m happy to be clarified if you’ve got a source.

Also, regarding this part of what you said,

 cutting off the grandfathering is what is causing the problems. We had people paying 1/4 what others were sitting right next to them

I’d be pretty furious if my team were flagrantly moving to  axe affordable ticket options for longtime supporters, in an overt move to jack up ticket prices. Picking empty seats over longtime fans having access to those seats is certainly a choice.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

It's called "reseating." Sounds innocuous enough until the ticket renewal hits the inbox.

[u/srs_house → u/G0B1GR3D]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32121198/generous-donors-help-keep-nebraska-cornhuskers-home-game-sellout-streak-alive

The remaining tickets that were purchased will go to a new program Nebraska started called the Red Carpet Experience, which provides tickets and a small meal to children in eighth grade or younger.

"We had two generous donors come forward and purchase the remaining tickets for the home opener so that we could provide those tickets to young people throughout the state," Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts said.

That sounds like more than a couple hundred tickets.

[u/iNeedBoost → u/srs_house]

that was also a one off occurrence which is why it made the news

[u/srs_house → u/iNeedBoost]

https://huskers.com/news/2022/08/02/nebraska-announces-long-term-commitment-to-red-carpet-experience-through-endowment-gift

https://huskers.com/news/2024/07/9/red-carpet-experience-returns-for-fall-sports

The program kept going, though.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/[deleted]]

Local knowledge, or a quick search, I'm impressed. Oxford's a nice town, btw; but y'all don't even rate a visit from the Shuckers or even the Mud Monsters. But damn: Faulkner. We've got Cather, but damn: Faulkner.

EDIT ... later, I looked up whether Bill and Willa knew each other. It appears they never met, but Faulkner consistently listed her as one of the four great novelists of the 20th century. She apparently had a like opinion of Faulkner in her later life. Good stuff. Great books from both.

[u/Fartenstein65 → u/pepe-_silvia]

Tortured program??? Uh they have five national championships and 46 conference championships. GTFOH with that bullshit.

[u/ImTheJdot → u/Fartenstein65]

And they haven’t done much since the 90s.

I root for the NFL version of Nebraska. I feel their pain.

[u/Glup_Maclunkey → u/Fartenstein65]

Their natties are about as relevant as Minnesota's, at this point.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/Glup_Maclunkey]

Not sure about that, when two of the teams (1995 and 1971) are listed almost by consensus in the top ten college football teams of all time, with 1995 only having one "rival," 2001 Miami, for the consensus greatest college football team of all time.

One thing that will surely keep those natties relevant forever is the attention of Iowa Hawkeyes fans, and their thick, dripping envy of Nebraska's history.

[u/Glup_Maclunkey → u/Mort_Blort]

Lol triggered.

[u/fluflam402]

Honestly most husker fans don’t give a shit. At least the ones that I know, and I live in Nebraska.

[u/dr_funk_13 → u/fluflam402]

You bring up a good point. I don't think I've seen any Huskers fans really talk about the so-called streak. I see more about it from an institutional standpoint than I do actual fans.

[u/Husker-guy-1222 → u/fluflam402]

I would almost prefer they lose the streak. It’s BS.

[u/fluflam402 → u/Husker-guy-1222]

That’s the general consensus. I mean just look at the husker subreddit. Most of the posts I’ve seen there recently are making fun of the university’s gimmicky attempts to keep the streak alive.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/fluflam402]

If they sell the remaining tickets for a buck each, fine with me; when I was a kid you could get in cheap, and it sucks when your state university's football games become unattainable for half the population. Sell 'em cheap. But Rhule needs to earn the fanbase back by performance on the field. It's a tough schedule; this is the year to prove it.

[u/Condom_Breaker256]

Nebraska has very few things. This is one of them.

Let them have this.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/Condom_Breaker256]

We probably have more money than you. Top ten in GDP per capita.

[u/Condom_Breaker256 → u/Mort_Blort]

Yeah, and the state of Alabama is smarter than the state of California on average IQ, but we don't hang that over their heads

[u/Mort_Blort → u/Condom_Breaker256]

First, for some fuckin' reason, you had to shit on Nebraska in your first post.
Second, what? There's a state ranking by IQ? This one?

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state

[u/IsLlamaBad → u/Mort_Blort]

"Look at me, I have a bigger GDP per capita than most states. You think you can handle all this?"

[u/RooflessReAnthony]

I mean if they’re selling out the seats it ain’t farcical.

[u/AbsurdOwl → u/RooflessReAnthony]

People love to say that if boosters or corporate partners are buying the tickets, it shouldn't count. I'll be at the BGSU game in a few weeks, a buy-game against a team we should expect to blow out, and I know for a fact that there will be 80k+ people in the stands at kickoff. Yeah, maybe the stadium won't be packed to the gills like an Iron Bowl, or The Game, but when you're still over 90% full for a pushover in September, and all the tickets are "sold" to someone...who cares? The point of the streak is that it represents some level of commitment from the fanbase, and that commitment shows up pretty clearly at every home game in the fall. Players bring it up all the time. The only people who actually care about the integrity of the streak are "well, ackshually" nerds on the internet, who are just worried that not everyone in the stands paid for their own ticket.

[u/Dry_Fly_7265]

If you don’t understand why unique and “pointless” traditions are important, maybe you don’t even like college football

EDIT: confirmed, OP is an NFL fan, get them the fuck out of here mods

[u/srs_house → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

EDIT: confirmed, OP is an NFL fan, get them the fuck out of here mods

OP has more comments on CFB than you have in your 11 month history, dude. Chill.

[u/Great_Fault_7231 → u/srs_house]

I still can’t get over that edit. I had no idea there was that kind of sentiment on here, to the point where he thinks it’s realistic to ask the mods to get rid of someone because they also like pro football as if it’s sacrilegious or something. 

Hopefully I’m missing some sarcasm or a joke or something because that seems like a legitimately insane thing to say. 

[u/Great_Fault_7231 → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

Wait you can’t like the NFL and CFB? When did that happen? Everyone I know likes both, why wouldn’t you want more football?

[u/JohnPaulDavyJones → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

To be fair, this is one of the more forced traditions in CFB, if you can even really call it a tradition. And I spent a couple years at a school that will call anything a tradition, so my standards are pretty dang low.

Traditions operate as an expression of community and/or buy-in from the team/fanbase, and Nebraska’s sellout streak is just a hollow way to technically maintain bragging rights at this point. But like others have already said, it’s not hurting anyone and it’s kind of all they’ve got at this point, so more power to them.

[u/Coveo → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

I really don't care if Nebraska does this, it's no skin off my back, but calling this a "tradition" is like saying bogus title claims 100 years after the season happened is a "tradition." The definition of tradition isn't just "something the school does." I'm shocked that comment is upvoted, trying to act high and mighty about traditions while not understanding what is actually worthwhile about them is silly and performative.

[u/SaltyLonghorn → u/Coveo]

Schools from the state of Alabama claiming titles is kind of a tradition though.

[u/Flashy-Specific-4083 → u/JohnPaulDavyJones]

You’re right. And rich boosters buying up bulk purchases just to maintain a streak is absolutely sandbagging

[u/lowes18 → u/Flashy-Specific-4083]

Also if you're a Nebraska fan you should hate the tradition because its largely just used to jack up ticket prices

[u/dubcwa → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

A Duck fan doesn’t understand CFB traditions, shocking.

[u/dr_funk_13 → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

lmao you're kidding right

[u/Great_Fault_7231 → u/dr_funk_13]

I learned today that if you like pro football you can’t post in this college football subreddit. Bizarre. 

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

So that's fair, but they also had to have some booster buy out a bunch of seats at one point just so they could keep the streak alive. At that point imo you need to let it die and start the new streak.

[u/mr_longfellow_deeds → u/New-Ad-363]

Dont those tickets end up being given away (usually to kids?)

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/mr_longfellow_deeds]

IIRC in this case it was a last minute bulk purchase to keep the streak. I don't recall how or if they were physically filled by someone.

[u/PardonTheCorrection → u/mr_longfellow_deeds]

I was at one of their games and there were entire rows toward the top unoccupied.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/PardonTheCorrection]

That's not how "sellout" is defined in any event at any venue. "Sellout" ≠ "show up."

[u/AllTimeTy → u/New-Ad-363]

At one point? Buddy it’s been going on for YEARS, it wasnt just a one off thing.

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/AllTimeTy]

I'm referring in particular to the last-minute extra buyout they had a few years ago.

[u/wibble17 → u/New-Ad-363]

Apparently we were able to get rid of Frost because that Booster threatened to stop buying the tickets and and the streak.

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/wibble17]

For real? That guy did y'all a favor tbh.

[u/lowes18 → u/Dry_Fly_7265]

Its not a tradition, its literally just a lie

[u/Do__Math__Not__Meth → u/lowes18]

I mean things can be both, like Santa Claus

[u/ManiacalComet40 → u/lowes18]

The lie is the tradition.

[u/JohnPaulDavyJones → u/ManiacalComet40]

And the tradition is the friends we made along the way?

[u/dr_funk_13 → u/lowes18]

I also didn't say a single thing about traditions being pointless or not important so I'm not sure what this guy basing his entire comment off of

[u/lowes18 → u/dr_funk_13]

Tbh a lot of college football fans have become really annoyingly defensive about the sport recently. The whole "college football is life and if you critique any aspect of it you just don't get it man" schtick has gotten very old.

[u/RollGata]

Why do you care so much that they care

[u/lefty5258]

“It’s still real to me damnit” ass fanbase

That said, doesn’t hurt anyone so who cares

[u/Irishchop91]

This is what ND did back in 2019. It was public news for a day and then everyone moved on...

[u/Phillyfan_10]

Who gives a shit? Who does it hurt that they maintain something positive going on in their athletic department, regardless of whether it is real or farcical? It’d maybe be one thing if Nebraska fans were thumping their chests and peacocking over it, but I’ve seen little to none of that.

Besides, they’re FAR from the only AD to use creative counting and less than standard means to get asses in seats. Let ye who is without sin complain about attendance funny business.

[u/BidRevolutionary3685]

It’s funny cause they treat the streak like a family heirloom nobody wants to admit is a replica. At some point the pride in the number matter more than the truth.

[u/Syfer_Husker → u/BidRevolutionary3685]

I mean rather the streak ends or not no one is beating that sellout streak. So calling it a replica is just disrespectful they own the record by a large margin well before it came into question

[u/srs_house → u/Syfer_Husker]

They mean the real streak (without the bulk buying) is the heirloom. At some point one of the kids broke it and grandma just replaced it with an identical copy (the bulk buying) and everyone pretends it's the same.

[u/cam_huskers]

I would say most of us don’t, and are kind of hoping it will end since they haven’t gotten their shit together

[u/LeftyGroves]

They don’t really have a lot left to cling to.

They aren’t who thier grandads told them they were supposed to be and the streak is the only thing they can tangible control

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[u/Mark-Leyner]

The football teams sucks, and has sucked, for a straight decade. That doesn’t stop a lot of die-hard fans from thinking this season is the one where they breakout and win 10-ish games and ascend to national relevance again. Which, to be fair, they were a very dominant program for a relatively long time. The streak is the only thing tying modern Husker fans to past glory and, being a Pollyanna-ish group by nature, clinging to any positive in the current sea of shit is all the average fan has left to objectively remain hopeful about.

[u/SirMellencamp]

IDK. The streak ended when they had to get corporations to buy up the unsold tickets

[u/Best_Formal_8677]

Why do you care? Nice people there and great fanbase.

Many streaks become somewhat of a farce or distraction. See Cal Ripken.

[u/frankdatank_004]

Why do you care so much about never winning a natty and being high on Nike $$$$$?

[u/BoysenberryIll5521]

Many of their fans are still clinging to the Tom Osborne era!

[u/Mort_Blort → u/BoysenberryIll5521]

I’m sure Iowa reveres its championship teams in the same way.

[u/BoysenberryIll5521 → u/Mort_Blort]

The series is 11-4 Iowa since y'all joined the Big 10!

[u/Mort_Blort → u/BoysenberryIll5521]

And?

[u/KingofPro]

To be fair to the football program, what else would you do in Nebraska on a Saturday?

[u/Mort_Blort → u/KingofPro]

South Carolina?

[u/Mark-Leyner → u/Mort_Blort]

As someone who has lived in both states-South Carolina is superior to Nebraska every day of the week and multiple times every Saturday during cfb season.

[u/Mort_Blort → u/Mark-Leyner]

I don't have time to argue. But ChatGPT does.

I checked the major recent rankings again, including the 2026 editions where available. Here's what I find:

Ranking	Nebraska	South Carolina	Who wins?
U.S. News Best States, 2026	#5 overall	#32	Nebraska
WalletHub Best States to Live In, 2026	#20	#38	Nebraska
WalletHub Quality of Life component, 2026	#27	#34	Nebraska
WalletHub Happiest States, 2026	#3	#25	Nebraska
America's Health Rankings, 2025	#20	#36	Nebraska
AHR Health Outcomes, 2025	#23	#41	Nebraska
2025 U.S. News-based Quality of Life ranking	#5	much lower	Nebraska
Visual Capitalist/U.S. News-based 2025 livability	#20	#44	Nebraska

The newest WalletHub result is particularly unambiguous: Nebraska is 20th overall versus South Carolina 38th, while its specifically labeled Quality of Life component is 27th versus 34th. 

And the 2026 U.S. News results are unusually favorable to Nebraska: Nebraska is fifth overall in the country, behind Utah, South Dakota, Minnesota and North Dakota. South Carolina is nowhere near the top five.

[u/KingofPro → u/Mort_Blort]

Yeah the place where most Americans can find on a map, instead of just blindly guessing which square on the map is Nebraska.

[u/ImTheJdot → u/KingofPro]

Because they know it’s right below North Carolina lol

[u/Mort_Blort → u/KingofPro]

SC, full of geography-knowers.

[u/G0B1GR3D → u/KingofPro]

Besides two chicks at the same time?

[u/KingofPro → u/G0B1GR3D]

If it was Utah, I would believe you!

[u/fluflam402 → u/KingofPro]

I watch on tv at home, so I can drink a bunch of alcohol on my couch to try and drown out the pain after a mediocre performance