Colorado football’s season ticket picture is shifting in the Coach Prime era, but the Buffaloes are still operating at a level the program hadn’t seen in years before Deion Sanders arrived.
For the first time since Sanders took over in December of 2022, CU is not expected to sell out its football season tickets. The renewal rate is also down after a 3-9 season in 2025. Still, the Buffs have already sold 20,284 season tickets for the upcoming year as of Tuesday afternoon, according to numbers provided to BuffZone by CU.
That total leaves Colorado below last year’s mark of 23,987, but it remains well ahead of where the program was before Sanders came to Boulder. In 2022, the Buffs sold just 14,915 season tickets. Prior to 2023, CU hadn’t cleared the 20,000 threshold since 2012, when 21,648 were sold.
The renewal rate tells the sharper story. Only 78.3% of last year’s season ticket holders have renewed for this season, a drop from the 98% renewal rate the Buffs posted in each of the previous three years.
Even with that dip, CU expects to finish somewhere between the 20,606 season tickets sold in Sanders’ first season, 2023, and the 21,128 sold in 2024, according to CU spokesperson Steve Hurlbert. Last year’s jump was helped by an increase of nearly 3,000 available season tickets.
Colorado’s season ticket streak of selling out is still a relatively new development in the program’s history. The Buffs first sold out in 2023, doing so for just the ninth time ever and for the first time in 27 years, since 1996. They also sold out in 2024 and 2025.
The 2026 season opens Sept. 3 with a trip to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech. CU’s home opener comes Sept. 12 at 1:30 p.m. against Weber State at Folsom Field.
The home slate also includes Texas Tech on Oct. 3, Utah on Oct.
17, Kansas State on Oct. 31, Houston on Nov. 13 and Central Florida on Nov.
Single game tickets and mini-plans are currently on sale at Cubuffs.com/tickets.
In Other News...
Colorado Makes Another Aggressive Move To Secure Its Kicking Future
Colorado is making a clear point about special teams planning, even with the season still unfolding. After adding kicker Cadel Ayala in a recent commitment, the Buffaloes have now extended an offer to 2027 specialist Dwayne Carter, another step in a deliberate effort to stock the room with more than just a single option. Right now, Colorado has one kicker in Elliot Arnold, and the staff is trying to get ahead of the kind of depth concerns that can creep in when a roster gets too thin at one of the sports most unforgiving jobs.
Carters recruitment has only just started to take shape, but Colorado is already involved early and has gotten him on campus for workouts. For a program that has seen enough uncertainty at the position to prioritize specialists again, that kind of early contact matters. The Buffaloes are not just chasing an insurance policy for the present, either, because the aim is to keep the kicking pipeline stable well beyond the immediate roster cycle. [Read more 🡒]
Coach Prime And Key Buffs Head To Big 12 Spotlight
Deion Sanders and several Colorado players are set to head into the conference spotlight next summer, with the Buffaloes scheduled to attend the 2026 Monster Energy Big 12 Football Media Days on July 7 in Frisco, Texas. The annual event brings together coaches and student-athletes from around the league, offering one of the first real chance points for teams to frame the season ahead before a national audience.
For Colorado, the trip will come with the usual questions about roster shape, expectations and how Sanders wants to present his program going into another Big 12 campaign. The event will also carry a meaningful tribute, as the conference plans to honor the late Adam Munsterteiger during the day, adding a more personal note to a showcase built around football and the people who cover it. [Read more 🡒]