Notre Dame Stadium Football Sellout Streak Ends After 46 Years

(Bloomberg) -- Notre Dame failed to sell out its football stadium Saturday for the first time since 1973, ending a streak of 273 games.

The last time Notre Dame officially played to a less-than-capacity crowd was on Thanksgiving Day 46 years ago against Air Force, a game rescheduled for television while most students were away. Attendance Saturday was 74,080, 3,542 below capacity of 77,622.

Nebraska has the longest sellout streak in the NCAA at 374 games.

“Based on ticket sales through Wednesday, we do not anticipate sellouts for our games against Navy and Boston College,” Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement on Twitter last week. “That this comes during a time of sustained success for our football program reflects both challenges impacting the ticket market nationwide and the unique dynamics of this year’s schedule.”

Notre Dame beat Navy 52-20 on a chilly afternoon in South Bend, Indiana, in the second of three home games this month. The Fighting Irish are ranked 16th with an 8-2 record and Navy was No. 21.

“It’s a sign of the digital age,” said Stephen Shulkowski, a 1990 Notre Dame graduate in mechanical engineering who is CIO of DuPont Transportation & Industrial. There are “many other options and ways to still be connected to the game.” Other alumni noted late-season games were sometimes sparsely attended even when sellouts were announced and cited rising ticket costs.

Tickets for the Nov. 23 game against Boston College are available on Notre Dame’s website for $45 to $150, while tickets against the University of Southern California in October went for as much as $300.

Notre Dame Stadium opened in 1930, the year coach Knute Rockne won the last of his three national championships. He died in a plane crash in 1931 and the stadium is known as the House that Rock built. It was designed by Osborn Engineering Co., which also designed New York’s Yankee Stadium, and the total cost of construction was more than $750,000.

It originally seated 59,075 until an upper deck was added in 1997. A further $400 million project completed in 2017 added academic buildings around the stadium’s perimeter, a giant video screen and artificial turf for the first time.

Garth Brooks played the first stand-alone concert in the stadium last year. Billy Joel is scheduled to perform in June.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Marley in London at smarley1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, James Amott, Todd White

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.