![Florida running back Jadan Baugh (13) runs during the second half of an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 29, Florida beat Florida State 40-21.2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2519,h_1416/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ReutersImages/mmsport/213/01m14vsdefcg1eprwh0v.jpg "Florida running back Jadan Baugh (13) runs during the second half of an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 29, Florida beat Florida State 40-21.2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Say what you will for Florida fans, but even at the depths of the Billy Napier era, Gator Nation still turned out in full force. One reason fans worried about renovations to The Swamp was the possibility of reduced capacity, even though The Swamp was constantly sold out.
It’s even more respectable that Florida fans keep selling out when one takes a peek down the road at what is happening at FSU.
Florida sells out The Swamp while FSU struggles to sell tickets
Numbers have started to come out to suggest that FSU is struggling hard to sell season tickets ahead of the 2026 season. It’s been reported that the Seminoles have sold a total of 27,838 season tickets, with their season set to begin on Saturday against New Mexico State.
That’s down from the 34,060 season tickets they sold for the 2023 season.
FSU season ticket holders in 2023: 34,060
— Jon Loesche (@jloesche88) August 28, 2026
FSU season ticket holders in 2026: 27, 838https://t.co/TauzsRIVw5
For you Seminole fans who may not be great at math, that’s over 6,000 fans who decided they have had enough of Mike Norvell and the product that FSU is putting on the field. It’s in line with the overall downturn FSU has had and is in line with the bandwagon nature Seminole fans have had over the years. In 2014, they set a stadium record with 84,431 fans for their game against Notre Dame. By 2019, only 43,530 fans showed up for a game against Louisville.
Even recently, the Seminoles regularly packed over 75,000 fans per game for the 2023 season. And while Doak Campbell Stadium went through some renovations that reduced capacity to 67,000 seats, FSU failed to reach that capacity in their final three home games of the 2025 season.
Is now a good time to mention that Florida is on an 18-game sellout streak?
Now, there are the geographical factors that hurt FSU, and that’s fair. And as the piece from Tomahawk Nation points out, part of the problem is frustration from fans who were displaced during FSU's stadium renovations.
But it’s not unfair to state that Seminole fans as a whole have this tendency to be as loud as anyone the moment they have an ounce of success, but the moment things go south, they go into hiding.
Kind of like Miami fans.
And for FSU, they are stuck with a double-edged sword because fans aren’t showing up because Mike Norvell has sucked the life out of them, but because fans aren’t showing up, they don’t have the money to get rid of Mike Norvell.
Oh well, not our problem in Gainesville, as the Jon Sumrall era is set to get underway.
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