But when ND jacked up the prices after going 4-8, they lost a lot of long-time season ticket holders. Which is why they advertise the availability of season tickets on the radio now.

I called the ticket office and asked to be put on the waiting list for season tickets. I figured it might take 15 or 20 years, but by then I’d be able to afford the tickets and hotels so it would all work out.

The lady from the ticket office told me, “Honey, those tickets stay in families for generations. We get so few non-renewals each year that we don’t even bother with a waiting list.”

was the last time that season tickets were easy to come by.

In the 1990s those families still held on to many of those tickets.

That seems like a reasonable ballpark to me.

season ticket holders"?

Are we talking about 4,500 groups of season ticket holders who may control 15,000 tickets/seats?

All one has to do is look at the individual ticket sales post lottery for some of our body bag games (which is after the alumni lottery).

I think the only way we get to "vastly more" is if we assume students and faculty/staff tickets are "season" tickets, because technically, they count for the whole season, but aren't really what people are talking about, which are recurring, year over year, keep your seat type of season tickets.