Ticket sales booming to pre-COVID levels for K-State football (and basketball) games
Sellout crowds are once again becoming the norm at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Kansas State football team has played four home games in Manhattan this season, and all four of them have been played in front of at least 50,469 fans. That is not a fluke. Now that Chris Klieman’s team is off to a 5-1 start, with a perfect 3-0 record in Big 12 play, there is a good chance that the Wildcats will extend their sellout streak to seven by the end of the year.
“That would certainly be nice,” K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said. “Each game that we have had success in has boosted energy and interest in the next home game. We have Texas and Oklahoma State and Kansas left coming in. Those are big games naturally, and winning has made those even more of a hot ticket. I anticipate that we will have all sellouts for the rest of the year.”
Stringing together more than half a dozen sellouts is a welcome change for K-State, which initially struggled to attract crowds during and after the coronavirus pandemic. Before this season, the Wildcats hadn’t played in front of a capacity football crowd of 50,000 at home since October of 2019.
Attendance cratered in 2020 with limited-capacity regulations in place because of the pandemic. Attendance was slow to rebound in 2021, when K-State averaged 46,368.
But crowds have surged above capacity this season. Even the final game of the year against KU — which falls the Saturday after Thanksgiving — is projected to sell out. That is typically a tricky game for attendance purposes with so many families traveling for the holiday.
But there is still time for fans to buy tickets for all three of K-State’s remaining home games. The Wildcats are happy to play in front of more than 50,000 fans.
“We are going to keep selling tickets,” Taylor said. “We have had standing-room only crowds at every game, and that will continue. If people want to buy tickets, we will keep selling them until we don’t have any more room for them.”
And ticket sales have been strong in more than just football. K-State is also expecting bigger crowds at Bramlage Coliseum for men’s basketball games this season under new coach Jerome Tang.
Taylor said K-State has sold 10,000 season tickets for men’s basketball. That’s up significantly from last year, when that number was closer to 8,000 in Bruce Weber’s final season.
“Those have also been really positive,” Taylor said. “Our basketball ticket sales are tracking right at where they were in 2019.”
The capacity crowd at Bramlage has been listed at 12,528, but after recent facility enhancements that number has dipped to 11,000 for the upcoming season.
Actual attendance numbers dipped significantly in recent years for home basketball games as the Wildcats suffered through three consecutive losing seasons. But that may change in 2022-23 now that Tang has infused new excitement into the program. Much like football, its ticket sales are on the way up.
This story was originally published October 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.