With under 400 seats still unclaimed, it's unlikely that the sellout streak is in any real danger. You have to figure that this article alone should remind folks to get their requests in, and maybe even catch a few people who were unaware that the process had already begun. But I'm surprised that the requests aren't exceeding the supply at this point. Ticket sales were announced nearly a month ago, so I expected quite a rush of inquiries. It comes down to the definition of "rush."

This process isn't a "first come; first served" queue. You make your request and indicate how much you would be willing to donate to get tickets. It's an auction. Offer to donate a lot, and not only do you move to the head of the line, you'll get better seats. Maybe even seats elsewhere in the stadium through the natural evolution of ticketholders. Some people pass away, and others move away. Some no longer can afford them. There's probably even a handful of Bo Pelini "haters" who'll refuse to renew their tickets. (Like that is going to make any difference, but it's their choice...) Some may even upgrade their tickets to new club or skybox seats, freeing up good seats.

But it does raise the question about the size of Memorial Stadium. With attendance likely to top 90,000 this fall for each game, is this upper limits of the market? Sure, when a Wisconsin or Michigan comes to Lincoln, Nebraska could easily sell another 50,000 seats if they existed. But for South Dakota State, 90,000 is probably too many. I'm sure many people would prefer to spend their $56 on something other than those tickets, if they had a choice. (And no, when the choice is between all eight games or none moving forward, nobody is going to say no to the South Dakota State tickets.)

Does this expansion meet all of the demand for Nebraska football tickets? Or could Nebraska reasonably support a bigger stadium capacity for all home games?

We now have a stadium that divides the fan base into 5 distinct and discernable categories:

1. Students, who will have a milling about area highly visible to visitors, where they can watch the band come in, see the team roll on their Spirit Walk, meet up with buds, etc. These guys are still expected to yell like hell.

2. Recently graduated Former Students and visiting fans. Their seats are going to be relatively similar, as will the noise output per butt in seat, sort of.

3. More seasoned and well off Former Students, who will get to enter through the “Oh My God!” entrance, be able to see what you can aspire to for parking, seating, etc, will be able to sit in relative comfort with access to the incredible entrance way / museum / food court / pretty decent bathrooms (essential for guys with expanding prostates and worn out livers and bladders). Noise output for these guys won’t change much from what we have expected from this group before, but there will be more distractions for them.

4. Loaded Former Students who will shell out huge bucks for the right to sit between the 20 and 50 yard lines and gasp, the small to medium sized corporate sponsor seats that will be filled with “friends of Rome.” These guys will not have gone to A&M, and there will be a lot of them in the stadium. They will be sort of into the game, their seats will be rewards for knowing the guys with enough money to buy these seats as write offs, but not enough time or inclination to sit in them. These seat holders will be indistinquishable from those same corporate ticket holders at DKR, for example. And do not kid yourselves, there will be A LOT of these guys. We have a few of these now, but with a 30% increase in seating for a stadium that has only sold out for some games a year traditionally, A&M suits are going to AGGRESSIVELY market these. $450 million is a lot of mul-lah, and A&M would not be adding that many new seats without figuring how much more they can make per added seat.

5. The Oh My God, No One Can Have That Much Money crowd. These are the guys who are going to underwrite the whole schebang. Their will be one or two billionaires in this group, but most will be in the $150 to $500 million crowd, and of course you won’t be able to see them, they will be behind lots of glass and air conditioning. These will include the mega corporations.

Don’t kid yourselves guys, this upgrade will change the personality of the fan base in the stadium. How much that will be visible or discernable, only time will tell. This stadium is not designed as a center for football. Think of it sort of as a coliseum, the planned social / fund raising center of the university.

Do you have a source for the announcement? I can't find anything.