There is something about the "school administrator" mentality that makes it impossible to see the students as customers -- which they are.  To be sure, there is a parental aspect to college administration that has to be upheld.  But you are dead on target with the carrot over stick approach when it comes to customers making decisions with their own time and money.

What really steams my beans is that they really think lack of Wifi is the main reason kids don't come. How can you be that out of touch? "Kids these days.. All they care about is their tweeter and their facebox. If there's a place they can be on those phones for 3 hours they'll go there." Yeah. It's called home. I never gave a shit about a lack of wifi in the stadium. Lack of phone service got annoying sometimes but only when trying to find someone and most of the time if a message got through they didn't look at their phones til halftime anyway.

Excellent read. 

Both general admission and HAIL are total failures. 

Hit the nail on the head with HAIL. A free t-shirt ain't doing jack shit to get me to go to a women's basketball game. Sorry. I still think the only reward that would get me to care about HAIL is either a discount on future tickets (fat chance) or priority seating for the bigger games. 

General Admission was a disaster too. When I went to one of the games, me and some buddies showed up early enough to get row 20, but we sat down in row 60 because we liked those seats better. We were forced to move down or we got kicked out. 

Or the time they held ropes for the Notre Dame game to make sure every damn person got a certain seat. It took forever and a "Fuck Dave Brandon" chant even broke out. 

By the end of the season, I just stopped caring and showed up ~5-10 min before kickoff, not because I don't care (please don't accuse me of that), but because the system was so terrible I'd rather show up late, not deal with the lines (as much, that is) and get a higher seat (which I actually prefer). The system was supposed to make me show up early. I did the opposite.

Good job, good effort.

But I don't think the Michigan Athletic Department will.

I think one important point us that students seem to have a hard time selling tickets for games they don't attend. Validation was the first hurdle, and now GA has seemingly killed that market. So tickets previously sold and used are now just unused. Did the department make that much from validating tickets? If not, then forget it and allow other fans to buy those seats.

David Brandon has brought scorched earth "business practices" to the University of Michigan.  The no-shows are the "fruit" that can't grow in said soil.  Fire David Brandon first.   As long as his style of "business" is conducted at the University of Michigan, user experience will only deterioirate while prices will continue to rise.  

David Brandon is sucking the soul out of University of Michigan athletics.  The program is in great danger of becoming "just another reveune stream."

Bring back assigned seating! GA has been and will be a total failure and 95% of the students hate it. That same 95% are the people that won't wait in line 3 hours before game time and then try to show up by kickoff and be forced to wait in long hectic lines that seem to go nowhere. As a student I can say there is a major disconnect between the AD and the students. Most of us are sick and tired of their bullshit policies that cater to what they want and not what the students want. They forget we are students and taking out 8 hours on a Saturday including getting up early is not the best time management/most desirable thing for most us. Also get rid of whatever the heck this basketball student ticket policy is. It sucks

Michigan is not that good at football right now and the quality of opponent has dropped significantly.  Fix these issues and the attendance and fun problem is eliminated.  Also, it makes all the other stupid bells and whistles irrelevant and easily ignorable.  Easier said then done of course.  

the student ID policy was much more relaxed. If non-students could use student tickets without validating them more seats would fill up.

Problem solved in two easy steps:

1.  Allow "Hot Dog Guy" back into stadium

2.  Replace hot dogs with Chipotle burritos.

College kids love Chipotle.  This is economics 101.

 

As an MGoStudent, I keep hearing about glory days of marshmallows and toilet paper. I think the students on MGoBlog need to mobilize and bring this tradition back.

On the other stuff, I don't know what to do.

I remember when we couldn't fill up Crisler. Our basketball team sucked, student sections were empty, and even with general admission, the arena didn't fill up until halftime. Cheap tickets and free food incentives didn't really do much.

Then our basketball team got good. We expanded the student section to a second lower bowl, and then we filled up several upper deck sections. Ticket prices increased, but Crisler still sold out. Even crappy games like Nebraska had great attendance.

I honestly don't care about RAWK, ads, expensive food, or racking up points to get a free T-shirt. If I'm going to leave my HDTV, beer, and warm house to watch a game in person, there's got to be something good on the field. Put a good football team on the field, and you'll get the students to show up, pay hundreds of dollars, and stay for the whole game.

If the students buy tickets they can do whatever they want with them and show up when they like ... just like every other fan !!!

Other facts downgrading the situation;

1. Schedule blows

2.  Prices are through the roof to pay for all the non-revenue generating entitlement programs

3.  Tickets cannot be sold for face .... see #1

4.  Ushers are rude and non-existent at the end of games or during evacuations

5.  Exist from the stadium takes 30 mins.  Ref. #4 plus fans are also useless since they feel they are better than every other fan and run up the seat section.  Kinda like the morons on the highway that get over to exit at the last possible minute

6.  I'm sure there is more ... see other posts.

 

 

 

My daughter got to be a senior just in time to endure the general admission policy.  She went through 4 years at Michigan and never got a sniff of seat past the end zone.  I got to sit on the 40 yard line when I was a senior...with my friends, too.

When I was at Michigan, if you wanted to see football, well, you had to get out of your chair and go to the stadium.  Every game wasn't on TV.  Now that you can see every game on TV, some seats on the 40 yard line with your friends might seem attractive enough to get to the stadium.   With all the things they have at the stadium now that they didn't have when I was an undergrad, you'd think there would be a way to leverage them to create student demand, not destroy it!

I'm not sure that having a winning team is necessarily going to do wonders for student attendance. Granted it will probably help some but low attendance is not just an issue at Michigan. This article discusses the fact that even Alabama has had problems with it. I really think that HDTV and skyrocketing ticket pricess are the biggest culprits here.

I remember when they went to GA, the upperclassmen who had waited their turn for good seats were pissed.  The reality is that people want to sit with their friends AND have good seats.   Freshman have no idea who their friends are and I think a lot of the moving around was with Fr and So students.

I would make Fr. and So tickets true GA.   Let them sit wherever they want in their sections.  It would also stop the section from looking so empty at the start of the game.  Jrs and Seniors and Grads can pay one price and sit in GA or pay a small premium for assigned seats that are in better sections. 

Let them sell the tickets.   The University needs to stop worrying about the "lost revenue" of students selling seats.  Especially given its partnership with StubHub,  I think it will actually result in more loyal fans.  Students often have friends and family visit and would love to bring them to the game.

 

This is my seventh year on this campus (UG + Law school). I go to the games and wish other people did too, but I don't fault the people who don't. 

I care deeply about Michigan football, but I care about it increasingly like I care about a pro sports team rather than a team that I personally, viscerally identify with. I attribute this mostly to the athletic department's drive to wring every cent it can out of the football experience. Of course there's the obnoxious ads, but it extends further than that. You can't buy a Michigan sweatshirt on this campus for less than $80. A t-shirt is $30. Constantly being gouged robs you of a feeling that something is "yours." It just makes you feel like a customer. And when a business doesn't respond to the desires of its customers (trifling complaints like cell phone service), its customers leave.

The righteous indignation from on-high comes from the fact that you interact with the team differently than this 'generation' of fan. The team was good and it was yours. As such, you take offense when someone acts disrespectful to it. Sure, you can sell less student tickets so that you feel better when you're at the game, but you're only going to push away the group even further. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I guarantee you it's not coming from Dave Brandon. 

Thank God I wasn't around for the quasi-GA bullshit.  That would piss me off to no end to be handheld down to my seat by the ushers and not be able to move UP rows for a better view.  It's not quite as bad as the student ticket prices, which nearly doubled over the 4 years I was in school.  Then I have to listen DB say he's raising the prices, not for money, but so students "value their investment."  Right.

Adding conference reallignment into the mix, college football has gone from something I loved to something I love to hate.   Honestly I am ready for the bubble to burst.  There needs to be some massive change in direction in college athletics in general or that organic quality about college football we all loved will be forever lost.

while i agree that the punitive measures didn't work, i think there's one punitive measure that could work, when coupled with new developments incentives to reward students.

i would create a ticket system as follows: first, shrink the student section.  then, at the beginning of the year, students to receive season tickets in the student section by giving the athletic department your credit card.  they charge your card for tickets to the first three games.  they also devise a set of criteria by which you earn the right to buy future tickets.  in the future, if you've proven that you're coming to games, you're credit card is automatically charged and you're emailed a game ticket during the week prior to the game.  if you do not earn those tickets, your credit card is not charged and your tickets are released for sale. 

for instance, if you don't show up to any of the first three games, your credit card is not charged for the remainder of the season and the tickets that you've forfeited go on the market.  as the season progresses, the formula is adjusted and if you stop going to games, then the week of a game, your ticket will be released and you won't be charged.

the formula would be generous to students, but at the same time, the university sets up a marketplace for single game ticket purchases for students only.  if you lost your regular seats, you still can buy single game tickets, at a higher price.  if a student purchases that ticket, he or she is likely to attend the game.  three days before the game, the single game student tickets not purchased go to the pubic for sale.

this system accomplishes a few things.  first, it isn't entirely punitive, but strikes a balance between letting students know that there's a value to attending games and if you don't see that value, we'll find someone who does.  second, it allows students to stop going to games if they don't want to, while not having to pay for the ticket and giving that ticket to someone who both will pay and is likely to show up.  by giving students notice of the conditions, you leave the choice in their hands.  and by releasing unsold tickets just prior to the game, you decrease the likelihood that the tickets will be sold to fans of the visiting team.

students that are big fans and go to games would have no problem with this system; they are going to get tickets no matter what.