Student tickets for Saturday’s rivalry game between UM and the Florida Gators sold out in just three hours, setting a new standard for demand. The Hurricanes continue to draw larger crowds amid its football program’s resurgence.
Many students reported problems with the student tickets website, including error messages and persistent loading screens. Kali’a Victorino-Smith, a freshman at UM, shared how she could not claim tickets.
“I waited on the student ticket app for 45 minutes waiting for it to reload and did not know the whole game was sold out until a friend texted me, we both did not get tickets,” Victorino-Smith said.
Students immediately shared their excitement — and, in some cases, frustration with the ticket website — across social media. One TikTok user, @ddanirose posted a video of the ticket site saying, “pov my 98k tuition goes to a student ticket site that doesn’t work.” One user commented they didn’t get tickets until 1:30 p.m., an hour and a half after tickets were released. Another told UM Athletics “they need to do better.”
Danielle Hills, a sophomore at UM, said that her experience of claiming tickets was no less chaotic.
“It was honestly so frustrating because there was no progress and everyone was frantically trying to figure out what was happening,” Hills said. “It was just an hour of straight frustration and confusion.”
Student tickets also sold out for the Hurricane’s season opener against Notre Dame. With two sold out games only four weeks into the season, UM fans support and participation is consistently continuing as the Canes climb up in national rankings.
Even if students could not score tickets, their enthusiasm for the matchup is still high.
“The game is going to be insane,” said David Kuper, president of Category 5. “We saw earlier in the season how great it is to have a long-time rival come to town when we went up against Notre Dame, and this one means a little bit more since it is our state rival.”
ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show is coming to Coral Gables for Saturday’s match up versus the Gators, marking the second time that the show has been on UM’s campus since 2017. The announcement sent waves of excitement through the Hurricanes’ fan base.
The University of Miami has won five national championships during its “decade of dominance” in 1983,1987,1989, 1991 and 2001. The program thrived, winning consistently and developing future NFL players. Miami was gradually building a football empire. with challenges in location, recruitment, and coaching, losses began to pile up, extending a streak of disappointing results. Things turned around with Mario Cristobal, a former UM football player who has been coaching the Hurricanes since 2021, created a turning point in the football program’s revival.
The Hurricanes are now ranked fourth in the AP Top-25 Poll with a 3-0 record. Miami will face Florida in a highly anticipated match-up on Saturday at 7:30pm.