[Farm93]

It was exciting news when it was announced.  And very nice to know the stadium mix will be a little less blue during the game.  Normally a return of tickets this early is a sign of a few things.

First, ticket sales by the visitor are well below historical norms.
Second, in-season ticket sales have likely stalled.
And most importantly third, there should be another big chunk that will get "returned" in the 11/14-11/18 window.

An AD will save some tickets from their road game allocation with the hope that there will be a late ticket purchasing rush from their students or alums (think UCLA for Stanford last year).  Since it is always possible that UCB could win the next few games, the CA AD likely still has a good pile of tickets available for that scenario.  The on-the-field and in-the-ticket-office miracles are unlikely to happen, so at some point that last reserve pile will come home too.

I would not hold out for those final returns if I still needed tickets since I would guess the Stanford AD will start to form a waitlist against that reserve at the Cal AD.

Seems like the Cal AD will get to see lots of red on November 23rd, and probably are already seeing a lot of red in their 2013-2014 financials.

[Farm93]

It was exciting news when it was announced.  And very nice to know the stadium mix will be a little less blue during the game.  Normally a return of tickets this early is a sign of a few things.

First, ticket sales by the visitor are well below historical norms.
Second, in-season ticket sales have likely stalled.
And most importantly third, there should be another big chunk that will get "returned" in the 11/14-11/18 window.

An AD will save some tickets from their road game allocation with the hope that there will be a late ticket purchasing rush from their students or alums (think UCLA for Stanford last year).  Since it is always possible that UCB could win the next few games, the CA AD likely still has a good pile of tickets available for that scenario.  The on-the-field and in-the-ticket-office miracles are unlikely to happen, so at some point that last reserve pile will come home too.

I would not hold out for those final returns if I still needed tickets since I would guess the Stanford AD will start to form a waitlist against that reserve at the Cal AD.

Seems like the Cal AD will get to see lots of red on November 23rd, and probably are already seeing a lot of red in their 2013-2014 financials.