Nebraska’s Softball Regional Ticket Mess Was Entirely Predictable

For the first time in more than a decade, the Nebraska softball team is hosting in the NCAA Tournament.

The Lincoln Regional, which features the Huskers, South Dakota Coyotes, Grand Canyon Lopes, and Louisville Cardinals, starts on Friday, May 15. The event is completely sold out.

While it's great to see support for the softball program, the ticket-buying process was a nightmare and was completely predictable.

Some fans knew this process was coming. An email had been sent out on April 29 describing the ticket-buying order. While softball was mentioned in replies on social media, much of the discussion surrounded how such a process would affect baseball if they were to host a regional.

The first softball-specific email from Nebraska was sent out shortly after the bracket was announced on Sunday night, detailing the tiered ticket sale system. The window to buy tickets opened at 9 a.m. on Monday for Husker Athletic Fund season ticket holders, then trickled down to non-HAF season ticket holders, and at 3 p.m., the general public could purchase what was left.

By noon, all of the reserved seating was gone, and the only option remaining was general admission, which includes bleachers and the berm.

Around 2:15 p.m., a pair of reserve seats were listed for upwards of $4,000.

According to Tyler Kai, Deputy AD for Revenue Generation, every season ticket holder had the opportunity to purchase tickets, and 1,000-plus tickets were available to the public at 3 p.m.

The problem? Tickets showed up on SeatGeek, the official resale market for Husker Athletics, before non-HAF season ticket holders and the general public had an opportunity to purchase their tickets.

Luckily, the ticket office will prevent those resellers from buying tickets to the next round if Nebraska hosts a Super Regional, but in the same breath, the ticket office's email to fans who couldn't buy tickets was to purchase from SeatGeek. Kai noted that the push to SeatGeek is because they recognize that situations come up.

"But that isn’t the same as someone purchasing for the sole purpose of reselling their seats and acting as a ticket broker," Kai said in a social media post.

Despite the news that came five minutes before the sellout email hit inboxes, Husker softball fans refused to stay silent on the matter and took to social media to air their grievances with the process that could have been prevented but, as one anonymous football donor told me, they "appreciate getting some type of perk for donating $1,000 a year for the privilege of buying season tickets for a mediocre to bad football team."

That statement alone highlights what is wrong with how Nebraska operated on Monday, but I don't think the venue size was considered either.

Nebraska offers the same tiered ticketing system for all of its sports that are hosting postseason, but Bowlin Stadium is one of the smallest venues on campus and isn't built to hold the roughly 17,000 HAF season-ticket holders.

The Devaney Center currently has 8,309 seats, and it's adding 2,000 during the renovation. Hawks Field at Haymarket Park can hold around 8,600, including 4,400 reserved seats. Pinnacle Bank Arena's capacity is 15,000-plus, and Memorial Stadium will soon reach beyond 85,000.

The Devaney Center Indoor Track can seat 5,000 and the new Outdoor Track has bleachers for 2,000, though additional short-term seating is expected to be utilized as well.

The only venue Bowlin Stadium can truly compare to is Hibner Stadium, which holds roughly 2,500.

Football is what drives college athletics, but those who give to softball should also be treated with the same respect, especially when it comes to buying softball postseason tickets, because without them, this team might not have been able to bring Jordy Frahm, Kacie Hoffmann, or Hannah and Lauren Camenzind home.

That anonymous football donor actually feels the same way.

"I still feel like the true softball fans should be taken care of first," they said. "It is absolutely ridiculous that I had access to buy regional tickets before the loyal fans and season ticket holders."

In an interview with NTV's Chris Wagner, Kai said he "was skeptical that someone who's not interested in Husker softball already is all of a sudden going to get tickets for and be super interested and eat up all those tickets."

Well, Kai, you might be skeptical, but it did happen, and they told me so, as long as they could remain anonymous because they didn't want any hate mail from Husker fans.

"I would not describe myself as a softball fan," they told me in a direct message on X. "In most years, I'm broadly aware of how they're doing, but I don't make an effort to watch or attend games. I root for them because they're a Nebraska team and I am a Nebraska fan, but they're pretty far down on the list of sports I'm interested in.

"This season has been different. I've paid more attention to how the team is doing. I've watched parts of a few games on BTN Plus. And I stopped at Bowlin to watch a few innings of the South Dakota State game while my kid was at practice. I am nearing borderline 'bandwagon' status.

"My current plan is to split the three sessions. I'll go to one. I'll sell one. And I'm hoping to connect with a season ticket holder or family member who got shut out - I saw a tweet from (presumably) Jordy Frahm's mom saying that players' grandparents were shut out. That definitely isn't right."

You read that correctly, Frahm's mother, Emily Bahl, posted on X that her parents were turned away from purchasing tickets, even as softball season ticket holders and donors. She piggybacked off a former Husker parent's post, Jon Squier, who also couldn't purchase reserve seats despite being a season ticket holder and donor.

This brings us to another point because it's a bad look that the student-athletes' families were turned away from buying seats.

The way tickets went on sale didn't just affect Husker fans either.

South Dakota has seven Nebraska natives on its roster, and their families had to fight for tickets as well. The program was allotted 100 tickets – 75 reserved and 25 general admission.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Monday, it's that softball season-ticket holders, softball donors, and the families of the student-athletes deserve a little more respect because, without them, none of this would be happening. And just wait to see what happens with the process in two weeks if baseball gets a regional, too.

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