In 2024, the year before coach Jason Eck, the Lobos went 5-7. By the last home game the crowd was down to 14,067. In Eck’s first season, the average home crowd rose to 25,252, up from 16,001. UNM says that 58% jump was the biggest in the country.
Winning lit the spark. Cheap seats made it easy to keep coming back.
The spark
The deals were in place for the 2025 opener against Idaho State. It drew 17,639 fans, about 300 more than the 2024 opener. The winning had not started yet.
A week later the Lobos went to the Rose Bowl and beat UCLA 35-10. Their next home game, against New Mexico State, was the first sellout since 2007. It was also the rivalry game, which had drawn 27,414 in 2023 for a team that finished 4-8.
The Lobos kept winning, and the crowds kept growing. By November, 27,526 came for Colorado State and 30,575 for San Diego State. The Lobos finished 9-3 and tied for first in the Mountain West, and earned their first bowl bid since 2016.
Cheap to come back
The cheapest single-game seat at University Stadium is listed at $16, in the north end zone. With fees and tax, the Ledger’s check of UNM’s ticket site on Oct. 24 came to about $20 a seat. In 2025, each of those seats came with up to two free tickets for kids 12 and under. A family of two parents and two kids paid for two seats, not four.
This year the free kids’ tickets come with north end zone season tickets. UNM says that deal, if every kids’ ticket is used, costs less than $6 a game.
Inside, hot dogs, popcorn, Pepsi drinks and water cost $4 each. The cheapest season ticket costs $86, the same as in 2024, even as demand climbed.
UNM said the deals might only break even. Kasey Byers, a senior associate athletic director, told the Daily Lobo, “This may be something we break even on, or this may be something that we’re willing to invest in.”
How much the deals added on their own can’t be measured. Free kids’ tickets count toward the crowd, and UNM does not publish how many it gave out.
The fans stayed
This season’s opener, against Central Michigan, drew 24,126, 37% more than last year’s. On Saturday, 34,794 watched the Lobos beat North Dakota State 21-16. UNM is 10-0 at home under Eck and 6-1 this season.
The best defense at forcing mistakes in the country
Fans keep coming partly because the Lobos keep taking the ball away. No team in the country has a better turnover margin this season, and no team has more interceptions, 15.
UNM sold a little more than 5,000 season tickets for 2025 and passed that by summer 2026. It said about a third of the buyers so far were new.
UNM’s own Instagram kept pace. A Ledger count of the football account’s posts found it posted about three times as often in fall 2025 as in fall 2024. Those posts drew about four and a half times the likes, even though the older posts have had longer to collect them.
Will Eck stay?
Eck started over almost from scratch. His first team had 75 new players and 34 returners, which UNM says was the fewest returners in major college football.
Now everyone wants him, and his contract gets cheaper to break this winter. We’re ranking where he could land next. Eck Watch comes out Wednesday.
What the crowds were worth in dollars shows up in UNM’s next NCAA financial report, due in December.
Reader comments
What do you think?
Burqueños know this city best. Add what you've seen, ask a question, or push back on the story.
Loading comments…
New here? Sign up with your email. Confirm it and you're in, no password.
Comments are closed on this story.
Comments are the commenter's own words, not the Ledger's. Comment rules