Dave Brandon says students actually aren't showing up
Contrary to the "everyone is just squeezed in", Dave Brandon claims that students aren't showing up for kick off, or at all-
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121116/SPORTS0201/211160345/Michig…
Last weekend, athletic director Dave Brandon said there were 11,000 empty seats — there are approximately 22,000 student tickets — for the noon kickoff against Northwestern. It only sparsely filled in as the game went on.
Apparently it's a problem at big, non-early games too.
For the 3:30 p.m. kickoff against Michigan State on Oct. 20, there were 3,500 no-shows, Brandon said. And, another 1,000 students came in and validated their tickets to re-sell, bringing the total to 4,500 no-shows.r
Though it's not not just Michigan Students-
There is a trend," Brandon said. "I talked to my colleagues across college football and it's becoming more and more difficult to deal with the number of no-shows in the student section and the fact they arrive so late."
There seems to be an actually change over time by students, if not just by locale.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:04 PM ^
Did you work, too, during your time at school? I did, although not every term. I listened to the infamous Colorado game while at work.
Also I didn't want to spend money on tickets - that $100 (or whatever it was, I don't remember now) was the same as a textbook. I had to watch every penny.
Priorities, indeed.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^
I worked when I had to, which was about half the time. I was fortunate to land jobs that didn't have Saturday hours.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:53 AM ^
Boom. More students attending. Guaranteed
November 16th, 2012 at 11:06 AM ^
Hey you Pandora! Come open this box right here. Naw I'm just gonna watch. This is gonna be awesome.
In all seriousness, a friend works in an athletic department that does public relation type stuff. I've asked him whether this will ever happen where he is. At his university at least, this thought is thrown out almost monthly and fiercely debated by the staff until the AD tells everyone alcohol brings more problems than solutions. Wash, rinse, repeat.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:14 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 1:17 PM ^
It was about West Virginia of all places.
Not sure alcohol sales would drive up attendance though as most undergrads are under-21.
November 16th, 2012 at 4:57 PM ^
Most undergrads have fake ids
November 16th, 2012 at 11:21 AM ^
The AD staff can fiercely debate this all they want, but until the Big Ten changes its rule forbidding alcohol sales at college sporting events in B1G University-owned athletic venues, it doesn't really matter what they decide.
Maybe they have changed that rule already, but I am not aware of any exceptions in the Big Ten. Minnesota has alcohol sales at football, but that stadium is not owned by the University. I also know that a lot of Wisconsin hockey fans were disappointed when the team moved out of the Dane County Coliseum and into the Kohl Center on the Wisconsin campus for that very reason.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:18 PM ^
It's not a university in the B1G and there are other schools in his conference that serve alcohol so the dike is already leaking where he works.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:57 AM ^
It has something to do with this?
http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-sees-increase-in-ou…
November 16th, 2012 at 11:41 AM ^
Ehh, I was an out of state student during undergrad and went to every football game. I am in grad school here now and still haven't missed one. I know plenty of out of state kids at michigan that have embraced michigan football and are very passionate about it. The problem seems to be non-unique to us "out of state" people anyways...other schools like MSU that are traditionally very heavy in-state are seeing worse attendance issues in their student sections.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:25 PM ^
Most of the out-of-state students I know get tickets, but then they're always the ones who in November mention stuff like, "Yeah... I haven't been to a game since the first one..." The in-staters are certainly part of the problem too, but much less so.
Your point on MSU is moot because nobody cares about MSU football.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:16 PM ^
I'm not going to get in an anecdotal pissing match with you. My point is that just saying out of state people suck does nothing to address the issue, which is that people who are buying tickets are not coming to the game. I'm more interested in creating a system that prevents/discourages that than just scapegoating out of state students.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:42 PM ^
Doesn't explain why other schools are seeing the same trend unless they too are admitting more out of state students.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:15 PM ^
It may be more an out of the country thing. Foreign enrollment is way up at US colleges.
$$$'d.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:21 PM ^
I don't think that's a factor, unless international students are buying large numbers of football season tickets at every school. That seems pretty unlikely.
The issue across the country isn't that students aren't buying tickets, but that they're buying them and for some reason don't use them.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:40 AM ^
damn double post.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:20 PM ^
I came in from Vermont as somebody who was interested in football, and liked the idea of school spirit but it didn't go much beyond that. I wound up joining the MMB in my sophomore year, and now I actually feel guilty if I have to miss watching a game.
Correlation, not causation in my opinion.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 11:12 AM ^
The surcharge was added in the late 1990s or early 2000s as a way to curb scalping in the diag/in front of the Union. The reason was mainly due to the ridiculous amounts of money being made on tickets like OSU or MSU. If they removed the surcharge, it would allow the students that aren't attending to sell their tickets in advance. This would fix the problem and create a free market for these tickets. Yeah, the student section wouldn't be a true student section anymore, but at least it would be full.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:24 PM ^
I don't know if that's the answer. I remember there being a lot of complaining about non-Michigan fans sitting in our student section, as well as some older people who just didn't understand how students behave. Once, I saw an elderly couple in the student section, using someone's scalped tickets, complain about the students in front of them. The ushers finally came and actually made the students sit.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:17 AM ^
People have way more free time than 4 hours per week. Students just apparently want to do something else with it.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:02 AM ^
I'll be that guy to say it, I'm sure someone is thinking it.
But what's the international student population there these days? International students aren't necessarily rabid American Football fans. Not saying there are 11,000 of them but it could be a minor reason.
Edit: Well Blueinorion just said something similar to what I was getting at, except he has facts.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^
I think you're on to something. As the article posted above indicates, over 40% of Michigan's admissions are international and out-of-state students, people who may not have grown up football fans and certainly not Michigan fans. Contrast that with our rival at Ohio, their admission pecentage of out-of-state/international is only 9%.
Yes, Michigan is more attractive academically, but it pays the price fan-wise.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:12 AM ^
But those students wouldn't have gotten tickets in the first place. The issue, if I'm understanding it correctly, is people that have tickets that simply aren't showing up.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:42 PM ^
And we've always admitted a pretty large share of our student body from out-of-state. That's not a new development.
Only around 50% of the student body buys season tickets, so that means that there are a significant number of Michigan residents not buying them, either.
November 16th, 2012 at 5:21 PM ^
Most likely, the parents paid for those tickets.
November 16th, 2012 at 5:26 PM ^
What does that matter? I don't see what that has to do with anything.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
I bet if we offered punch and pie at the games for students, they would show.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:46 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 12:10 PM ^
Pizza. Pull some strings, Brandon.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:08 AM ^
Hmm, wonder if they could institute some program where after the first quarter, they start reselling 75% of the unfilled student tickets at a well-discounted price on a first-come first served basis. They know where those seats are; it's all in their scanners. All money goes to charity so the AD doesn't profit from double-selling tickets. Locals or other big fans who can't get/afford season tickets could get in and see a game. Or 3/4 of one. If you are a legitimate student season ticket holder who shows up after the 1st quarter with your ticket, you may have to be resissued a different one if they resold yours. The 75% cap would guarantee that no season ticket holder who comes that late will be screwed out of seeing a game (hey, some of them may have good reasons), although they might be seeing it from a different seat.
The one thing that probably makes this unworkable is the way students move down; there would be a lot of disruption with all kind of people coming in looking for their seat after the game has already begun, and not all of them are going to be cool with "find a seat somewhere else, asshole" which is what I expect a lot of them will hear.
You could argue that they could do this with all other seats, but premium seat purchasers would get super huffy. That goes double for the club seats; people who spent gazillions would probably just freak right out to have so many hoi polloi among them. Students are the ones you could most easily do this to and survive the angry fallout.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
They shouldn't resell unused student tickets unless they're going to unsell unused non-student tickets, too.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:47 PM ^
Well, there's fairness, and then there's what you can get away with.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:42 PM ^
or how about just making the entire student section general admission. Solves the "find a new seat" a hole problem real quick. It also solves the entire issue of the social scene first students who somehow get lucked into sec 26 B seats. Sure it creates pressure to create a Hokeville camping ground outside the stadium. It also creates another issue of the diehards getting screwed out of their seat if something unavoidable comes up that prevents them from getting to the game on time. If it works for both the Maize Rage and the Children of Yost, then it can work in the student section.
I also suggest they start selling beer and cocktails at the game.
November 16th, 2012 at 5:49 PM ^
but not for the rest of the bball student section... at the first 3 games, none of the upper deck part of the student section in crisler was filled (essentially the shame problem as the top rows in big house being empty)
November 16th, 2012 at 5:47 PM ^
Reselling tickets at a discount would cut revenues.
People (non-students) would hold off on donating and/or buying season ticket packs and wait to get in for cheap.
It's the same thing as when people wonder why at 70% empty early season basketball games, they dont just give away free tickets or sell them for like $1 - nobody would buy the full price tickets if they expect handouts.
Literally no pro-sports team does this, and no university sells discounted tickets to football/bball games to non-students.
You could argue some people wouldn't want to miss the first quarter or risk not getting in... but there would be enough people who choose this option over ponying up for full price tix to make it incredibly unprofitbale, and thus unpalatable to the AD, even if it alleviates the attendance problem
November 17th, 2012 at 8:09 AM ^
You can get plenty of early season basketball tickets on Stub Hub for five bucks or less. There are still thousands of empty seats. People simply don't want to go, at any price.
Yet they will pay top dollar when State, Ohio, Indiana, etc., come to town. The opponent drives demand. Giving away tickets for Binghamton wouldn't stop folks from paying top dollar for top opponents.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:15 AM ^
Trim the student section. Once they won't be able to get into games because someone else will have what was once their section, it will teach them get there EARLY. Not on time. On time is late.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:48 PM ^
this year they enlarged the student section and I cannot remember even 1 game that was TOTALLY full ... much less have students there at kickoff. Eveidently some students do NOT value having football tickets, so reducing the number of tickets will still allow those students that really want to go to get theirs.
They had their chance ... and blew it
Go Blue!
November 16th, 2012 at 11:15 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 11:16 AM ^
I'm still for the general admission policy in the student section. Try that for a full year, and if there are still thousands of unscanned student tickets per game, then trim the student section and make the ticket-getting process linked to having actually used your tickets the year before. (Freshman would have to be exempt from this policy, obviously.)
General admission would solve so many problems. I've been both a student fan and an usher (and now an alumnus) in the student section over the past 5 years, and 90% of students are not in their assigned place anyway. Everyone wants to be with their friends, and the ushers cannot move hundreds of people around to fix the assigned seating issue every time some first year girl comes crying about someone in her seat. Just open it up, get people who want good seats to come in earlier, and make the seating arrangement more enjoyable for everybody.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:44 AM ^
I definitely think that they should track people's attendance at games. To me, it would greatly assist them in deciding how priority should be given when/if they decide to trim the student section.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:45 PM ^
The Izzone tracks attendance. If you don't show up, then you lose your priority within the section.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:47 PM ^
They should institute a program where students will earn points for each event they attend and have the opportunity to collect rewards as they hit designated point thresholds.
/ HAIL'd
November 16th, 2012 at 11:17 AM ^
I gradutated in 2011 and am still going to the games in the student section. You can definitely tell the difference between now and only a couple of years ago. It used to be that you had to stand sideways to fit in your seat, but now there is plenty of room for everyone. Get this: I remember the student section being more packed in 2008 than this year. How does that happen? IIRC, they just expanded the student section in the last year or so, but it should have stayed full with the way that we were packing it in 2007-2010.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:33 AM ^
they've made the seats wider since 2008
November 16th, 2012 at 11:39 AM ^
They said they were going to do this, but I thought they scrapped this plan because it would have reduced the capacity too much.
I know that the number of seats on my row in Section 20 hasn't changed since I started going to games in the 1970s, but I guess I don't know about the student section.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:22 PM ^
They kept saying they were going to do it, but never got around to it as far as I can tell. Certainly no more space in my section (I'm third from the end of my section, and still 2 seats on the other side of me). I'm not complaining. Seemed crazy to add all those seats in luxury boxes, then reduce your capacity by cutting out other seats. We want mmmooooorrrreeee!!