Here’s an indicator of how excited Notre Dame alumni were about this year’s football team before the season even started: The University’s ticket office had to mail $5.2 million in refunds to losers in the annual alumni ticket distribution lotteries, a record high.
Alumni who contribute at least $100 to Notre Dame can put in to buy up to two tickets to as many home and away football games as they like, but they usually have to be lucky. A pool of about 33,000 tickets is set aside for contributing alumni to purchase for each home game. Any time the number of tickets requested exceeds that supply, a lottery is held.
That was the case with all six home games last year with demand being the greatest—54,437 tickets requested—for ND’s October 15 showdown with USC.
Demand also exceeded Notre Dame’s allotment for every road game except for the finale at Stanford. Enough seats were available for that game to satisfy all requests.
The money sent in by those not selected in the lotteries is mailed back to applicants.