You can refute it all you want, but I'll never change my opinion. The pussification of American has killed the fun of nearly everything. Like Brian said ''The current generation of suits spent their days at Michigan buying tickets for their kegs and throwing toilet paper willy-nilly. These days, a weirdo who buys hot dogs at halftime and tosses them around the section gets kicked out.''

Society as a whole these days aspires to be some type of Utopia that's not possible to reach. We allow the minority to control what we do. I realize throwing marshmallows wouldn't be a great idea now because they'd stick to turf on hot days, but what's wrong with throwing toilet paper? Throwing hot dogs? Bringing in coolers to sporting events? 

Football is supposed to be fun. Going to games are supposed to be fun. People drink and get drunk and have a good time. It's just the way it is...everywhere in the world. But people are hellbent on making everything a Utopia of no danger and no fun. I don't blame the students at all. 

might compensate for the loss of students. That is providing you haven't alienated them, too. 

And then there is the question of the product on the field. If I'm still living in A2 I'm probably not coming near it, even though--like a slavish dog--I'm watching every game on TV. My brother certainly isn't. 

I live in Tallahassee, and I'm constantly amazed that FSU would rather have no one in the stands than offer a really attractive deal to university employees, who are the biggest homers there are but see nothing for their pains. Does the UM offer a serious break to its employees?

At what point does someone say to Brandon, yo Warbucks, we're already raking in bazillions, just fill up the f'ing stands!

There have got to be a few more ways to skin this cat. 

When I was a student (mid 2000s) I didn't miss a game and was always in the stadium at least an hour before kickoff. I looked forward to it all week. However, I have only been to one game since (UTL) and I haven't had much of a desire to come to more. For one thing I don't have many if any friends that are still around Ann Arbor so I would need to get a hotel room and fight traffic after the game instead of simply walking home. There are also the cost and inconvenience factors so many others have mentioned. But mostly, even though I'm a Michigan fan first, I'm a huge fan of college football in general. I would rather be watching other games during commercials. Especially with most of our games being at 3:30 now, going to the game early means missing the end of the early games and the beginning of the late games and that's if I don't have to drive home right away. So it isn't specifically about Michigan Stadium, more that I prefer to watch several games at once.

at Michigan and other schools is that a tipping point is being reached caused by high prices, more restrictive policiies, and various annoying new gameday experiences  (like RAWK).  Finally, a lot of people are just saying "F-it, I'll just watch the game on HDTV and save the money".  And if you add to the mix some mediocre games or a team with a poor record, the apathy is only going to be worse.  I think to improve the situation, Dave Brandon and the rest of the suits in the athletic administration building need to start looking at the fans, supporters, and alumni who fill the Big House (mostly), Crisler, and other venues as long-term customers and valued people - and NOT simply ATM's that keep the athletic department operating in the black.  Start offering more value - not less.  In this case, value means a simpler, more pleasant and hassle free game-day experience at a fair price.  

 I admit that it is unlikely we will ever go back to a pure football experience at Michigan Stadium.  I love Michigan football and always will and will support the team and players to the max. Still, I feel the experience over the last 8 years has deteriorated and could be better without a lot of the nonsense.

I'm old. I admit it. I fear that this will sound like a guy who shouts “get off the lawn!”  I admit I started going to UM games in 1962 with my father and grandfather and continue to do so.  The game experience for me is pretty hard to take with big-board-commercials, non-live rawk music and way too many TV timeouts.  I see a parallel in this degradation with the TV  NBC Olympics...too little action and too many distractions from play (e.g. the Olympics  "up-close-and-personal" stories and commercials.) The Olympics are unwatchable on network TV, it is much better to get the Olympic action online. UM football has not gotten that bad, but is headed in the wrong direction. True fans will still go to the games without all the distractions.

I loved that guy. And 2006.

charging people $100 a pop (or more) to do something that they can do at home is fundamentally unsustainable, unless you offer them something special, and some of the things that made the first-person experience special and unique to michigan stadium have essentially gone away:

• the greatest marching band in the world has had its role reduced, replaced in some cases by the same rock music played in every other stadium.
• the whole no-advertising thing; we love talking about how "there's no advertising in the stadium," but as brian points out, the scoreboards are constantly pummeling you with twitter messages, and ticket come-ons for other sports, and 'the official hydration supplier of michigan athletics."  i can turn that off at home.  i can't do that in the stadium.  if we have such a hard-on for money, i would happily take banner ads in the stadium over having my eardrums assaulted by non-ads for 3 1/2 hours.

top that off with ticket price increases that far outstrip inflation and couple that with lousy lousy lousy nonconference scheduling, and here we are.  the student attendance thing is just a subset of an issue that is absolutely not going to go away with a more successful football team.

i love going to the stadium, but the days of me going to three or four or five games a year are long gone.  i promise you i'm not alone.

Hot Dog Man sat right next to me during that infamous 2006 Iowa game when the legend began. Yes, he was a man.

I currently live in Eugene, Oregon and have had the pleasure of attending a few Duck games in the student section because my wife is in grad school there.

There are many things I don't like about the Autzen experience, but the way they handle student tickets seems to work like a charm. Student tickets are free for all events, including football and basketball. For football games, students log-in to Oregon's athletic website the Sunday or Monday prior to the game and request a student ticket. The time you are allowed to log-in is determined by your student status (grad students @ noon, seniors @ 1pm, juniors @ 2pm, etc.), but almost everyone who wants a ticket seems to get one.

The ticket is electronically placed onto your student ID card, meaning there is no waiting in lines or camping out or any of that. When you arrive at the stadium, they swipe your ID card and stamp your hand. It goes very quickly with little or no delays. You can then walk to the entrance of any part of the student section you want, and all they have to do is glance at the stamp on your hand before letting you in. Seating is truly GA, and that seems to work without any problems.

Oregon does a few other things that I think would work really well at Michigan. First, they do punish people who request a ticket and then don't show up. Because tickets are free and there are some people, in theory, who aren't able to get them, this seems completely fair to me. I beleive if you miss two football games that you requested a ticket for, you are no longer able to get tickets for the rest of the season. 

Another interesting thing that Oregon does is change the size of the student section from game to game. They realize that they will not get the same number of tickets requested for the Tennessee Tech game as they do for the USC, Washington, or Oregon State games. So they simply reduce the number of available student tickets for those games and sell them to the General Public.

Overall, I think a system like this would work much better than the system they are currently trying out. And personally I would have liked this better than when I was there and we had assigned seats. Maybe I should forward this absurdly long post on to Dave Brandon???

The bottom line is that Brandon does a poor job of housing the "event" of a football game.  He comes not just from a corporate world, but a entirely bland, middle-of-the-road, corporate world.  At Dominoes, he had to distract people from the fact that the product sucked.  Now, he overlooks the most important aspects of the game to focus on someone else's version of a modern sporting event.  He's a follower; not a leader.

Eliminate all of the TV time outs so that the fans in attendance can enjoy the game without those interruptions.  The TV networks can time-delay the play-by-play for 3-4 minutes each time they want to do a series of commercials.  In the end, the TV audience will see the end of the game maybe 30 minutes after its actual conclusion.  This modification would ensure the paying customers get to see a superior product without penalizing the  non-paying tv audience to any significant extent.  In the end, it's a win-win.  The schools get to keep their fan base and reward them by allowing them to see a commercial-free product.  The tv audience gets to see the entire game in almost real time without destroying the game-day experience for those that attend and make the game more enjoyable by their cheering and shouting.  The tv networks, including the Big 10, have to do something for the fans that actually attend the game.  I think this could be it.

Reserve the first 20 rows between the 30 yard lines and behind the visiting team's bench to upperclassmen who have a 100 % perfect attendance record in their underlassmen seats   Put those underclassmen seats anywhere.  I guarantee those tudents will be make sure they attend every game, no matter what.  Wouldn't you love to be within shouting distance of the MSU and OSU benches?

I was an undergraduate student from 1978 to 1982.  So yes, I witnessed the marshmellow throwing, passing the co-eds up the rows, hip flasks, etc.  

It was also a time when only a small number of football games were shown on television, so if you wanted to see a Michigan football game, your only recourse for the most part was going to the game in person.  The only high-tech item you carried with you was a transistor radio with an earpiece so you could hear the radio broadcast.

I read through a lot of the complaints here and while there are a number of good takeaways (such as streamling the general admissions process and letting students sit where they want rather than having them fill in the seats from the bottom up), a lot of this is just bitching.

People say they want exciting games and that seems to equate to non-conference portion of the schedule.  What people like me who were around during the Big 8/Little 2 era of Big Ten football recall is that the schedules back then really weren't that competitive anyway (which is one reason why Michigan wanted to get Notre Dame on the non-conference schedule--that series started up again in 1978).  But we went to the games anyway.

IRT the non-conference schedule, it's pretty clear that Brandon is moving away from having MAC teams on it.  Here's the non-conference homes games post-2014 that he's been responsible for putting together:

2015:  Oregon State, UNLV, Brigham Young

2016 (9-game conference schedule starts):  Hawaii, Colorado, Central Florida (played in BCS bowl game past season)

2017:  Cincinnati, AIr Force (with Florida as a neutral site game because getting a home-and-home with UF probably wasn't going to happen)

2018:  Arkansas, SMU, one TBD

The only MAC team on any published schedule is Ball State for 2020--and the reason they're on there is because Hoke used to be their HC.

Now as far as I can tell, there really haven't been any traditions removed from Michigan football that I witnessed as an undergraduate.  I go to one game a year since I live in the Washington DC area.  The band has what appears to be the same opening game ceremony as they did 35 years ago.  The team still runs under the banner.  If you get there early, you can watch the team warm up.  Group of musicians from the MMB play up in the stands (and the drumline performs prior to the game).  And there's still no commercial advertising in the stadium (which is totally unique in the CFB experience).

So what are the rest of the complaints?  You're not happy because the women's volleyball team gets a shout out during the football game?  The rawk music isn't to your taste or there's too much of it.  That's about 50% of the comments here.  Or would you prefer a 30-second ad from Ann Arbor Toyota or Domino's Pizza to be shown instead?

You don't like the television timeouts?  Well, folks, not only is that how the bills get paid, but seeing how much CFB coverage has blossomed, it's a small price to pay when compared to what was available on the tube back in the late 70s and early 80s.  Beyond that, what do you want the AD to do about it?  I actually do like the idea of getting a highlight package together to play during the breaks in the game (something you think the Big Ten Network could put together at the minimum--I don't know about how cooperative ABC/ESPN would be) so you could see what was happening elsewhere.  But is that really a game changer for the student body?

If the articles in the WSJ and CNNSI are to be believed, having a really dominant football team could be a problem as well.  Go figure, but having a series of one-sided games can be boring to the eyes of many students.

I think the bottom line for a lot of students is simply this--apathy.  The in-game experience is not as valued as much as I went to school because they can all be watched on television.  If partying or drinking is your primary social activity on a football Saturday, why show up at the game when you can do it at your frat or your apartment, etc. while watching the game on HD TV?  If attending football games isn't an integral part of the "Michigan experience" as the students define it, why should you expect them to go?  

If I'm Brandon, I continue to do the tweaks necessary to keep the students interested.  I think there are some good suggestions here that could be followed up.  But if there are segments of the student population that are disengaged from the Saturday football experience because they have "better things to do", then be prepared to shrink the student section and sell those tickets to the general public.  In fact, if I were him, I'd price them as "cheap seats" so that mythical family of four from Grand Rapids could attend the game without breaking the bank.  If you can't lock in the students as future alums to attend the games, then perhaps it makes sense to reach out to parents and their children instead.

and common laws of supply and demand.  Michigan football is competing against:

1. HDTV and broadcast coverage w/replays and discussion/informing of events

2. The ability to skip TV timeouts and watch other games (which most fans enjoy doing)

3. The ability for fans to sit in comfortable seating, throw a football around the back yard, walk around, take comfortable bathroom breaks, lay down, etc.

4. The ability for fans to continually drink alcohol.

5. The ability for fans to eat well at every day prices.

6. The ability for fans to use the internet and make calls.

Note: Substitutes for the average Michigan football fan largely consist of football from home/tailgates and preferring to watch other football games, not going out to eat or taking in a poetry reading instead of watching the Michigan game.  These are the substitutes which Michigan needs to understand it is competing.  

Michigan gameday has the following inherent disadvantages:

1. COST.  It costs a lot for one student, and especially a family of four from Grand Rapids, to attend one game both financially and in terms of a time committment (which is also money/opportunity cost).  Substitutes for these entertainment dollars include movies, family trips/vacations, video game/entertainment systems, etc.).

2. The on-field product is an unknown (your team may lose badly regardless of how much you pay to attend).  Michigan football cannot control the outcome like a staged concert. This discourages fans from making sizeable financial committments to see a product they may not end up enjoying (unlike say a new TV or smartphone). This gives incentive for fans simply looking for good football drama to stay home and channel surf for the most compelling game.

3. Laws and legal precedences do not enable Michigan to promote or fully support several key ventures important to many fans including issues regarding alcohol consumption.

4. It is difficult and time consuming to get to negotiate the logistics of getting into A2 and making it to your seat and back home.

5. Weather can be a major factor in whether folks feel like attending or not.

In order to compete with these threats of substitutes, the Mchigan gameday experience needs to emphasize its strengths as an asset and work to compete to minimize the advantages of substitutes and the disadvantages of the gameday experience.

Minimizing the threat of substitutes:

1. (Good TV broadcasts): Show quality replays on the video boards in game to allow fans better viewing of plays that just occurred.  This helps them feel closer to the action and increases stakeholdership.  The introduction of the slo-mo replay is essential to good football viewership as evidenced by its significant role in transforming Monday Night Football into the most popular weekly program on TV and bringing the NFL to the forefront of professional sports.  You simply can't have good football without good replays anymore.

2. (TV timeouts and other games): Show highlights of other key Big Ten and compelling national games and amazing plays elsewhere on the video boards during commercial breaks.  This would address several key issues.  First, TV timeouts are a major weakness/threat of the in game experience (they occur often and offer little of value, and probably hold negative value to most). This would fill the TV timeouts with compelling information that most fans care about rather than solely providing weak cheer led chants and ads for upcoming volleyball and wrestling matches. Second, it would help lessen the incentive to stay home to watch football where fans can watch highlights of other key matchups (who wants to miss real time highlights of ALA v. LSU or ORE. v. STANFORD in order to see Michigan play TOLEDO or ILLINOIS?). This is all the more relevant today when the on field product is an uncontrolled outcome and fans have incentive to leave when Michigan is up or down by a lot or playing a patsy and fans discover that FLA V. AUB is quickly becoming the hyped up classic it was billed to be.  They want to know what's going on elsewhere and this is not a threat to their burning loyalty to M football.  The fan has become a national consumer of football. Third, while fans still have the advantage when watching at home by controlling the remote, they are not guaranteed to catch the other game's highlights or broadcast when Michigan goes to commercial as often two or three games on national networks can be at commercial at the same time (so frustrating). At the Michigan game, fans would be guaranteed the satisifaction of highlights during TV timeouts and would actually receive a net benefit of going to the game from this perspective.

3. (The family picnic/tailgate, etc.): This substitute is harder to compete with as Michigan fans are cramped in Big House seating and there exists a threat to student seat locations when going to the bathroom or whatever.  In addition, it is more difficult to locate, sit with and party with friends in the Big House than at an outside location.  Section entrance/exits are cramped during high traffic moments and make trips to the bathroom and concessions a struggle.  Michigan needs to think of creative ways to minimize the advantages of the picnic/tailgate setting that address ease of movement, comfort, assurance of seating, and fun atmosphere.  This may require an evaluation of potential renovations of section entrances or other methods to increase the ease of foot traffic (ramps from the top coming down?).  In addition, Michigan should consider ways to make it easier for fans to avoid getting up and encountering foot traffic issues (and thus help alleviate the problem) such as more in section vendors for various products carrying a greater array of concessions.  In addition, they may want to attempt to increase the fun factor a la the tailgate by revising marshmallow policies or others of the like (marshmallows could be allowed, and sold in stadium for a profit on days when the forecast calls for non-melting temps, etc.).  Of course, various rules may be applied (who you can't throw them at: stadium employees and cameramen, on the field, etc.).  It should be important to attempt to recreate the fun tailgate "throw the football round" atmosphere within various sections of the stadium while still considering ethical and legal ramifications.

4. (Alcohol and its consumers): Not much Michigan can do there legally. They could begin to sell, but risk their message of "family atmosphere"  and "wholesome college experience". Have to attempt to make up for the lack of the buzz in other ways.  

5. (Reasonably tasty and affordable concessions): This issue may be the biggest dollar for dollar consideration. Thus, it may require a great deal of research and even investment, but there is a great deal of improvement to be found in the concession experience at the Big House compared to the current, lowest common concession denominator employed by UofM.  First, crappy food is not enticing.  Find new ways/vendors to increase the quality. Remember, Michigan is competing against quality tailgate and at-home/delivery food options here, not a monopoly of only being able to buy in the stadium (threat of substitutes as they affect attendance and long term loyalty/fandom).  Second, find more efficient ways to get that food to customers in the stadium.  Fans shouldn't be torn about having to miss half a quarter to stand in line for some concessions.  More vendors/food stations in the stands?  Hot Dog grills near handicap seating?  Creative thinking is a must here.  Third, consider rewarding attendance with competitive concessions prices compared to those eating from home or delivery (this is where there may, or may not, be a signifcant drop in concessions revenues).  The athletic department may want to consider offering quality concessions to students at no profit for the athletic department.  This may, or may not, incentivize more students to show up.  Creative ideas here could include a "Grill City" location where a massive, 50yd long assemblage of grills cook up quality chicken wings and other meat products at reasonable prices.  In order to find space for such ideas Michigan may want to consider ways to expand the footprint of the stadium grounds to include potentially building platforms extending out from the top of the endzones or on top of the medical treatment facility or something else.  Finally, the athletic department may want to compete with the tailgate food options by offering creative ways to allow fans to bring concessions into the stadium.  Perhaps $20 allows someone to bring in their own food in specified cooler or travel bag sizes.  Perhaps students can bring in concession bags for free (allow me to bring in good chips and dip and hot dogs and snacks and beverages and I'd stay all game).  Of course legal issues would need to be studied here, and security would involve inspecting the contents of each bag and not allowing glass containers or alcohol,etc.).  These are just ideas, but ones that should be explored.

6. (Internet/cell phone service): Providing adequate service would help.  Simple.

Understanding that the greatest threat to Michigan football game attendence is the substitute of viable alternatives that fans enjoy, the athletic department must alter their perception of the average fan and how they approach those fans with the goal of creating and capturing long-term loyalty.  Loyalty is a two-way street built upon unique sets of characteristics and actions of reciprocity.  At the moment, the athletic department has neglected to reciprocate the loyalty of innumerable fans and endangered the long term viability of Michigan athletics as a profitable, community-oriented enterprise.  However, it is not too late to change the current situation.  By understanding the real issues at hand and working to create viable, sustainable solutions, the University of Michigan athletic department has the opportunity to win back many fans through authentic acts of reciprocity that demonstrate the athletic department's genuine appreciation for Michigan fans.

One more note:  This is a limited observation and does not go into further discussion about capitalizing on inherent advantages (being part of a crowd, etc.), nor does it go into further valuable discussion about minimizing disadvantages.  All of these unique ideas would need to be compiled and measured against the vast array of substitutes in order to better understand the issues at hand (poor attendance factors, primarily for students). This would enable the athletic department to create and implement an informed strategy that incorporates several ideas and frameworks through various mediums in order to achieve stated goals.  

Final note:  Big time sports in America today are pricing out the average fan as they cater to big pocketbooks.  This is evidenced by trends of modern stadium construction that emphasize various forms of luxury boxes, suites, party platforms, creative amenities for front row seats, etc (target segmentation/differentiation).  In recognition of this emphasis on maximizing revenue streams, modern stadium construction in professional sports has resulted in lower seating capacities for new stadiums with less "cheap seats".  This is particularly relevent in the NFL where only the Cowboys and Jerryworld and the Packers have significantly increased stadium capacity during the last 15 years of stadium construction.   However, colleges are not recognizing the laws of this trend as they continue to increase emphasis on corporate/booster pocketbooks AND work to increase stadium capacities (few colleges have sizeably reduced capacities (Purdue), while most are adding on to existing stadiums or constructing new corporatized stadiums (Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, North Carolina, Washington State, Cal, Arizona State, Texas A&M, NC State, Clemson, Minnesota, etc, etc..).  Whereas pro stadiums have ditched bench seats and poor sitelines and totally focused on maximizing the experience for each fan as an individual with a relative price increase to each participant, colleges are attempting to increase the individual experience for each booster or high roller while simultaneously focusing on the mass, communal experience of the college crowd.  This inconsistent focus has likely contributed to the swaths of empty seating in college stadiums and may be rectified by lowering stadium capacities and working to increase the individual experience of every paying customer, albeit at a higher price, like the pro leagues.

Calm down Dave Brandon