CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Illinois Athletics accomplished two ticket office milestones this week; football sold out student season tickets and women’s basketball sold out its luxury suites.

The football team sold all 8,250 of the available student season tickets, an increase of nearly 1,500 from 2024.

Illinois football head coach Bret Bielema says the progress in ticket sales has been a long time coming.

“Thank you to the students. We were about 3,800 my first year, now we’re sold out at 8500,” Bielema said. “We’ve more than doubled it, obviously a few weeks out from our first game so super excited and thank you to the students.”

Plenty of those students are more than excited about the upcoming season, citing the palpable energy on campus.

“I feel like the vibe around campus, there’s a sense of encouragement for the team,” said Illinois freshman Danny Libert. “They were like 10-3 last year, so that inspired me to see a good football team.”

That excitement extends to the women’s basketball team, which sold out its luxury suites for the first time in the history of its program.

The team has recorded three straight top-five attendance seasons.

“It’s fun to watch, they’re pretty good, they’ve been ranked the past two years,” said Parker Graue, a University of Illinois freshman. “Basketball is getting big here, there’s no reason they can’t expand to the women’s side too.”

Single game tickets are still available for most football games, and will go online for women’s basketball in October.