1:40 to Kickoff on Saturday - Two Pictures, One Problem and One Proposed Solution

they don't cut the section by 25-40% on top of, if anything, making it easier for students to get tickets. This would create demand for a seat and a larger base for the newly scarce seats. The goal would be to essentially rebuild the student section. If it still had issues then maybe we've found out the stadium capacity:interest ratio as to when the amount of seats and student expectations of team performance intersect negatively. Maybe?

It was Minnesota. The weather was not great. It was almost completely full, and loud, five minutes in to the game.

They should require a 20 question U of M football history test to be able to purchase student tickets.  Ask questions that are easily found on the internet though.  Make it so students have to register for  special account, set up a username, password, secret questions, account recovery options, make it time consuming to register for football tickets, most people who are just opting into student tickets because its easy and their parents will pay for it won't probably spend the time doing all that  Also, U of M tickets are overpriced, LSU, FSU and clemson all charge less for student tickets than U of M does, and they are all better teams than U of M  and have had more recent success, which matters more than tradition.

I can barely afford tickets the way it is. I go to this great institution but I don't receive much financial help. If tickets were raised to what everyone else pays, there is no way I could afford it. But "general admission" is not the answer. When we had assigned seats, I was always in the stadium early. I love watching the team warm up, watching the country's best marching band, and watching all those winged helmets running out of the tunnel and slapping the banner. But now with this new policy, you don't have a choice where to sit. They have been assigning seats and packing people in. Being someone who wants a good perspective on the game (section 26 row 40 to 50) I need to show up near kickoff. It's really unfortunate. Growing up I always knew I would go to U of M and then after graduation I would donate to the athletic department to support our teams. But after my experience with Dave Brandon as AD, I won't ever send in a penny while he's there (and I know other students with the same POV). I have been a loyal fan and have attended games my whole life in the big house and on the road. It's a shame that DB has caused many great fans to lose their desire to support Michigan Athletics. Every game I attend in the future I'll just buy my tickets off of stubhub or some other secondary market. Also, I can't wait to see how everything goes this basketball season. I'm sure it will all work out, and everyone will be happy. /s

Pretty obvious GA hasn't done jack shit. The student section never had problems getting to 3:30 games, only noon games, but now there's more empty seats at the beginning of 3:30 games than ever before. They filled in later, but that's exactly what used to happen before GA. 

There's a lot of blame on the students from the older alums. As one of those alums I think we're not seeing some of the other factors affecting student attendance. The first thing to keep in mind is that the student section often fills up...just not before the game. 1 - Pre-9/11 getting alcohol into the stadium was easy. Now it's not so easy and the students choose to pre-party longer before going into the stadium. We just got to bring booze into the stadium and keep partying. 2 - Pre-2000 not every game was televised, so the only way to see Michigan play was to actually go to the game. Now students can watch the game on their phones or their tablets and don't have to be on time and won't miss anything. So 1 & 2 combined give the kids incentive to not be on time. 3 - Student ticket resale policy is just as big of a problem. We could simply resell the tickets to anyone. So if a student couldn't go to a game it was easy to find someone who wanted to go to fill that seat. Now the students are handicapped in two ways. 1 they have to get another student to buy the ticket or pay the difference and get the ticket validated as non-student. 2 Those seats are less desirable for the general public because it's not an assigned seat until you actually get to the stadium. The policies have essentially taken away the free-market in the student section. 4 - Couple that with weak non-conference home games and you have an environment that makes it difficult for students to get rid of their tickets to non-students who want them and would fill those seats. In 1991 my out of conference games were Notre Dame and UCLA. I couldn't make UCLA and it was easy to sell to my friend's dad who paid double what I paid. But now if a student wants to get rid of his Akron tickets to a non-student who wants to buy them, he probably wasn't going to get face value anyway ($40). But now he'd have to also convert the ticket to non-student and pay the difference in price for the validation. It's cheaper just to not go than to try to sell it or give it away to a non-student. Paid attendance still the same, but there's a hole in the student section.

How about give real rewards for showing up early (clothes, stadium food, chance to win cool shit) and real penalties for showing up late to every game (show up late to every game, don't get tickets for next year) Better yet, get rid of general addmission and give the best fans the best tickets.

One thing that is REALLY stupid is how hard it is to resell a student ticket. The way you have get it validated (and pay a shit load extra to do so) is ridiculous. 

DB needs to realize that the current method for seating the students is counter-productive, since as several students have pointed out here there is a perverse incentive to NOT arrive on time. IF students are going to be forced to wait in line for GA seating, then they should be able to sit wherever they goddamn feel like it in the student section.

Personally, I think the obvious solution to late-comers and no-shows is simply to reduce the student allotment; from what I understand, the student section was increased not long ago, and I suspect supply has outstripped demand. However, before the student section is decreased in size, the GA seating procedure has to be changed, and changed now.

Going forward, I also think it's stupid to not use the capability that bar codes provide to gather information about how often a ticket is used, and when the entry time is relative to kickoff. If a student has compiled a season record of attending few games and showing late to those they do attend, they should be shoved to the end of the line for buying season tix.

 

I find it amusing that almost every solution to drive student attendance is actually an effort to limit student attendance (priority for seniority, smaller student section, reward programs based on prior attendance,blah, blah,blah). If this is really about the students, which most agree it is supposed to be, try looking at it from a different perspective (i.e. Not as a fan and current ticket holder). Make it so easy any student can attend if they want. I propose students get tickets for free. They can attend any game they want without being tied to buying a package deal. Those who get there early get the best seats. Once the student section is full, they can scalp a ticket to get in like any other fan who really wanted to go but didn't plan ahead. Do this, and I guarantee the section will be full repeatedly and on time. If not, than it is an indictment of the quality of opponent. I know there will be many arguments as to why this is stupid and not realistic, but if the goal really is to get students to the game, you can't argue against this idea.

Do what a lot of stadiums do to fake attendance....paint the seats to look like people are there.

Slap some yellow paint on the student section and it will always look full on TV.

I had no idea that the GA policy actually involved mandating seats once students arrive and stuffing everyone into their assigned seats.  What a terrible idea.  It's almost as if it were suggested by someone who never once ran a seated event before, or was never a student.  

If I were a student, there's absolutely no way I'd arrive before kickoff.  An integral part of the gameday experience takes place outside of the stadium.  Sure, "superfans" will never miss a second, but everyone else will be content with their DVR for catchup.  I just don't see a drop of benefit to this new system.  It doesn't help with the problem and, at the same time, takes away the value of seniority in student ticketing.

For me, this is a fundamental question of goodwill. The Athletic Department, since the beginning of time, has had a lukewarm-if-forgiving relationship with the students, as far as the students were concerned. Athletics didn't do anything overly objectionable, aside from trying to cleanse the Yost cheers every few years or raise ticket prices a couple bucks. You knew what you were getting, and you felt appreciated as a student fan.

This last year, the transparently marketing-intensive, cash-aggressive policies of this Athletic Department have turned off a lot of students, from rapidly escalating ticket prices to new seating policies. Yes, there was a freely-acknowledged apathy problem before these changes. Yet the reaction has been to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Whatever goodwill was left amongst the students towards the AD is completely and totally gone. Scorched earth. Everywhere these kids turn, DB and the marketing gurus are putting the screws to them. And then the adults turn around, go to the press, and burn the kids some more.

Any hope Dave Brandon, Hunter Lochmann, and Dave Ablauf had of getting the kids back in their camp is gone, especially since every week there's a new and even more denigrating and patronizing series of quotes from one or more of the three about the students. 

Guess what? You jerk around your most loyal consumers, the kids who literally eat, sleep, and breath the University of Michigan on a daily basis, they're going to jerk right back. What I see now is defiance, not apathy. They're pissed. And I don't blame them in the least. The systems these people come up make it easier for students to stop caring, not make them care more. Can't wait to see what happens when basketball season unfolds.

The fun part is guess who the future donors are?

Of course we are there before the game. If  I was still a student I would show up just before kickoff wasted off a couple of kegstands and surfing for some 18-22 Strange. Give em a break! lol

To have a huge empty section in Michigan Stadium is unexceptable

that we need to lop off about 10 rows of the student section. Clearly the GA compacting rule is having the effect of forcing early arrivals into less-preferred seats, and making the rest of the section look wide open until late arrivers fill in the obviously empty space. I'd revisit that sooner, not later. There are some good ideas being presented here, but I hope student prices stay low relative to other tickets, and that resales can be allowed.

In the north end zone looking right next to the student section looking down on everything.

My immediate, temporary fix: spread them out! There were probably as many students sardined together in that visibly 75% full section as in the normal sections, which looked very sparse from my vantage

Some simple (and likely unpopular) solutions if you actually want to affect attendance: 1. Halt admission 15 min before kickoff and resume after 1st quarter. I'd hate this if I was a student, but I'd be on time. 2. They must know how many ga seat assignments they've handed out, so allow people to attend on standby. Your ticket is only guaranteed until 15 min before kickoff, then the extra tickets are sold to non-ticket holders who show up at a very low cost (maybe 5-10 dollars?). Works for the airlines. Also would hurt the scalpers, but f them. I think a lot of local alumni who can't get season tickets would probably love this because they could try for admission and if they don't get in, they can go watch in town. Students would hate this, but probably would show up on time. 3. Spread the students out around the stadium. It looks really empty because it's all together. If the students were interspersed with alumni sections it wouldn't look as bad. Plus, it would spread out the noise. A 4. Shrink the student section and sell partial season tickets. Then you only have to show up for half the games and you can buy tickets from less enthusiastic fans for the other half if you want. As incentive, allow people who show up for every game the opportunity to buy full season tickets in junior/senior years. I think this is how hockey used to work when I was in school in the late 90s (and probably still does?). 5. Make the cost of a season ticket fixed, and have fewer home games in certain years. That would allow you to schedule top teams home and away, without worrying about whether you'd lose out on the revenue of one fewer home game. I'm not sure how concessions would work out, but having one fewer home game in a year where Ohio is at home and playing lsu or someone of that caliber at home in the other should keep the tickets worth buying even in years with fewer home games.

I am with those of you saying they should lower the prices for students. Things have gotten preverse with all of the money involved, but we shouldn't forget that these are students watching their peers compete for their school. The rest of us (alumni, fans, whatever) are just there reliving our glory days or bandwagoning on. If the NCAA is going to continue to claim the student part of student athlete is the most important, they should at least treat the students who want to come watch the games with respect. Students should be the first priority, the rest of us come after.