Ever wondered about how quiet and empty the campus feels on the weekends? Why don’t we have tailgates or huge games?
UC Irvine is missing something huge that is so American and so important to the cliché college experience — a football team.
This school has suffered from dead weekends and city-wide curfews since our founding in 1965. With few late nights and large community events on and around campus, where are students who live on campus supposed to safely socialize? Even our fraternities are often too busy studying or looking for a way to gain a larger student following for social gatherings. Only a football stadium — full of loud music and cheering — could bring in a mass following of Anteaters in one spot.
From volleyball to tennis, UCI has sports teams — but no football team or football field. Although only two UCs — UCLA and UC Berkeley — have a football team, UCI is infamous for its lack of team and school spirit.
For example, take a Saturday at UCLA — an unforgettable night full of tailgaters, the smell of grills smoking and music blasting. Waves of students in blue and gold with faces painted ready for the kickoff fill the streets.
Now imagine the same weekend at UCI. Students are hunched over on their phones at the Anteatery or inside their apartments. It’s a quiet campus with nothing but a couple of leaves falling and a tumbleweed passing by. The most exciting event is probably seeing Swag Man stroll through Aldrich Park in a new jersey.
UCI has always been deemed a socially dead school; this needs to change, Anteaters! When I first came to this school and went through orientation, I was told the story of why we don’t have a football team. I’m sure you’ve all heard it before: Why get a football team when we can build an extra library?
After that explanation came one excuse after another when I questioned further — budgeting, scheduling with the other football teams and funding. Despite these reasons, students have complained over the years about this and pushed to make a team happen. This conversation has been going on since the ‘80s. Previous Anteaters even resorted to a rejected student ballot measure to bring attention to the football dilemma.
Finances and scheduling are valid concerns, but they shouldn’t be the sole reasons for avoiding potentially significant change to this school. The arguments for implementing a football team outweigh the financial and academic obstacles that have kept it absent for decades. With a large student body of more than 35,661 students enrolled in the 2025-26 academic year, future football games could bring in revenue through ticket sales.
UCI already hosts events such as the Vendor Fair, as well as weekly and monthly pop-ups from on-campus and off-campus organizations. Now imagine these tents set up outside or even inside a football stadium. This would not only attract fans to come enjoy a game but also expose them to other foods and items that UCI-related sellers have to offer.
Picture the sports recaps and live commentary we could get from these games against our future rivals from our KUCI radio show. At the games — on-campus or off-campus — the student body could feel connected to something important that would be shared by UCI faculty and students alike.
Underclassmen often complain about not being able to go out on the weekends because they are underage or do not have a car. They feel stuck on campus with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Reasons like these are why we need to create a livelier campus with students who can share their love for this school and foster community by cheering on a football team at each game.
UCI has been designated as a Research 1 (R1) institution but that doesn’t mean adding a football team would diminish this academic image. From school spirit and lively weekend plans to a way to connect with other UCs, this could bring positive change to UC Irvine. If anything, a football team would prove that UCI students have spirit, energy and academic strength altogether.
Siona Chibber is an Opinion Intern for the fall 2025 quarter. She can be reached at schibber@uci.edu.