It looks like one of the nation’s longest sellout streaks will come to an end this weekend.
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick acknowledged in a statement Thursday morning that the Irish’s home game against Navy on Saturday is not expected to be a sellout, ending a streak of 273 consecutive games. Swarbrick said the university does not anticipate the Boston College game on Nov. 23 to be a sellout either.
Sellout streak dates back to 1973
Notre Dame has sold out every home game since Nov. 22, 1973, when it hosted Air Force at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame’s consecutive sellout streak trails only Nebraska, which has sold out its home games on a weekly basis since 1962. The Huskers’ streak currently sits at 373 games and will reach 374 on Saturday when Wisconsin visits Memorial Stadium.
In an interview with the South Bend Tribune, Swarbrick admitted that the school has sometimes had to get creative to keep the streak alive. There were tickets with large discounts. There were “friends of Notre Dame” who would buy large blocks of tickets.
But this year’s cluster of underwhelming home games — Virginia Tech, Navy and Boston College in a span of four weeks — proved to be too much to overcome.
From the South Bend Tribune:
Click Here: liverpool mens jersey
As an independent program, Notre Dame plays a national schedule that requires plenty of travel. The school is faced with the balancing act of creating a schedule that will attract fans to the stadium while also keeping the Irish in the College Football Playoff race.
This year, Notre Dame is 7-2 and ranked No. 16 entering Saturday’s game, meaning a return trip to the CFP won’t be in the cards. But if Notre Dame wins the rest of its regular season games, it will finish with double-digit wins for the third straight season.
More from Yahoo Sports:
-
Robinson: Kaepernick workout looks like NFL PR trap
-
Singer threatens to cancel Cowboys Thanksgiving show
-
No. 1 Kentucky loses at Rupp Arena to … Evansville?
-
U.S. Soccer’s Stewart: ‘No fear’ of missing 2022 World Cup