Here’s where UK football season ticket sales finished amid SEC losing streak
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky sold 38,297 season tickets for 2025, down 6.4% from last year's total.
- Renewals fell 12.7%, but final sales matched 2022 levels despite SEC struggles.
- Home games vs. Texas, Tennessee and Florida may boost turnout later in season.
After selling out of season tickets the last two years, Kentucky football’s 2025 season ticket sales dipped slightly in the wake of a disappointing 2024 season.
Kentucky sold 38,297 season ticket packages before the 2025 opener, according to data provided to the Herald-Leader through the state’s open records law. Last year, the program sold 40,931 season tickets. In 2023, it sold 40,288.
The 2025 season ticket total is on par with the 2022 total (38,262), signaling offseason predictions of a dramatic drop in ticket sales due to fan disinterest were not accurate. The Herald-Leader reported in May that season ticket renewals were down 12.7% from 2024, but the final drop in ticket sales was just 6.4%.
Kentucky could still make up some of the difference in ticket sales thanks to a strong home slate of games with Texas, Tennessee and Florida all scheduled to visit Kroger Field later in the season, but the announced attendance for Saturday’s loss to No. 20 Ole Miss (58,346) was the lowest total for a home game against a ranked opponent since 2015. Only twice previously in Mark Stoops’ 13-season tenure as coach had Kentucky announced a crowd of fewer than 60,000 fans for a ranked opponent.
“The environment was great Saturday,” Stoops said. “I loved the atmosphere and appreciate the fans and the support. It really was fun for the vast majority of that game. I wish we could’ve finished it off, but we are a better football team.
“This team is working hard and playing very tough, and working to improve.”
Kentucky has now lost nine consecutive home games against Power Four conference opponents and 12 of its past 14 home games against SEC teams.
The Wildcats figure to be underdogs in each of the three remaining SEC home games, too.
“This isn’t a team or a coach, or isn’t a coach and a coaching staff that doesn’t know how to win,” UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart said after Tuesday’s Champions Blue LLC board of governors meeting. “We’ve had a set of circumstances that have not served us well over the last couple years, and we got to find our way back to that. It’s important for us, our fans.
“...We’re trying to make sure that our kids understand what it means to serve an incredible fan base that we are fortunate enough to have. So yeah, make no mistake about it, we are supremely focused on finding wins. This isn’t about just surviving and being able to make sure that the finances work for us. That’s not what this is about.”
This week’s game against Eastern Michigan is likely to be one of the smallest crowds of the season. Kentucky announced a crowd of 56,457 for the season-opening win over Toledo. The last time UK opened the season with three consecutive crowds of less than 60,000 was 2021, when fans were slow to return large crowds due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021 Wildcats can offer hope for the current season, though.
That team went on to win 10 games for just the second time since 1977. UK announced capacity crowds of more than 61,000 for each of the final three SEC home games that season.
“Just stay with us,” junior safety Ty Bryant said after the Ole Miss loss. “We’re gonna see the sun again, and don’t let this one loss define us. … Everything that we want is still right ahead of us. We can still bounce back from this.”