October 8, 2026 - 4:59 pm

When UNLV hosts North Dakota State on Saturday for the first time at Allegiant Stadium, the Bison are expected to have a healthy fan base in the stands.

NDSU faithful have purchased or received around 3,000 tickets through UNLV, based on nearby area or zip codes, according to Kris Giese, associate athletics director, ticket operations at UNLV. Giese did note that there will be more Bison fans than that in attendance on Saturday, purchasing tickets other ways.

Sarah Wald, vice president of trustee, alumni and donor relations for the NDSU Foundation agreed that the final count will be greater than 3,000.

“The rumor or that what’s being talked about up here is 10,000 fans,” Wald said. “The Bison travel really, really well. In Colorado, we estimated we had close to 5,000 fans at the Air Force game. So, Vegas obviously is a really popular spot for people to travel and our fans love a good road game, especially in warm weather and we think that this one is really going to be of high interest.”

The expected attendance led to the Rebels opening ticket sales in some sections in the 200 level of Allegiant Stadium for the first time this season. Tickets are noted to be almost gone on the UNLV Tickets website, with ticket prices starting at $50 for the smattering of remaining seats, which are mainly seats on the 200 level.

On the secondary market, the cheapest listed ticket on TickPick was $33 as of Thursday, with the average price of the 1,950 available tickets being $117.

The NDSU Foundation also had a Bison Takeover listed on its website for the game. The foundation also promoted a tailgating spot at Allegiant Stadium for Bison fans to gather pregame.

The NDSU Bison Football Fans Facebook page was pushing fans to travel to Las Vegas, highlighting flights from the area to Southern Nevada, listing what sections to purchase tickets in and highlighting a pregame fan meet up at Sickies Garage located at Town Square shopping mall.

UNLV head coach Dan Mullen noted this week that he’s aware that Las Vegas is a destination city for fans of opposing teams.

“We bring in a lot of traveling fans to this city,” Mullen said during a news conference. “The more the merrier coming. I think people love coming to Las Vegas, I think it’s a great opportunity. Whenever anybody has us for a road game, that’s a circle (on the schedule) for the fan base.”

Mullen said this week he hoped the game attracted 60,000 total fans made of mainly of Rebels fans.

The Bison enter the matchup undefeated at 5-0 and atop the Mountain West standings in the school’s first season with the conference. UNLV sits at 3-2 and is coming off a home win over Cal.

Saturday’s game is UNLV’s homecoming, and Mullen has been pushing for fans to show up to games all season long. He continued that this week calling on students to show up in force against the Bison.

“If we just get out students, we have 34,000 students, to show up for homecoming, boy, that would be a heck of a scene,” Mullen said. “They got the end zone built in; we’re playing with the real stadium, too, so they’ll be right there on the field, in comfy seats.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.