AD tweets now sponsored
Some of you may not even care about this, but it definitely caught my eye. The last tweet from the Michigan Football account (@umichfootball) was sposored by Cadillac.
Dave continues raking in the cash. If we don't let him put advertising in the stadium, he'll do it any way he can.
https://twitter.com/umichfootball/status/504694139179782144
EDIT: This wasn't intended to be an indictment on the athletic department. Just was interesting to notice.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
OH NOES!
August 27th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 27th, 2014 at 3:26 PM ^
Yes I'm all for it too! Can't have enough advertising on social media.
Sent from Samsung Glaxy S5 Android phone via Verizon Wireless 4GLTE while riding in a 2015 Ford F150 insured with Allstate. Allstate official partner of the NCAA. Drink Coke. Ford Tough. Think Outside the Bun.
August 27th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^
I agree! Although it is nice that we don't have any advertisement tags on the end of posts here.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 27th, 2014 at 9:41 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 5:58 PM ^
Tacos...
August 27th, 2014 at 2:30 PM ^
Scrap the program. All of them.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:31 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 27th, 2014 at 10:33 PM ^
It's promotion of that person - the person who owns the feed. That's why you follow them - to get news about them. Not about whatever company gave them money to take advantage of their high number of followers.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:32 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
The AD needs to make money, and doing this is a simple way to do that.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:36 PM ^
Its important to note, Bo NEVER got any of his tweets sponsored. Hell, Crisler just straight up refused to sponsor his tweets too. This isn't Michigan. Yost is rolling in his grave. Damn you, Dave Brandon.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:36 PM ^
I don't think Michigan has ever had a longstanding 'tradition' of sorts of not using sponsors on social media accounts. Ads in sponsorships in the stadium? I'm pissed. But if Brandon wants to make a quick buck by throwing some business' name onto his tweet, go crazy, Dave.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:37 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
You're into some weird shit, pineapple penguin.
August 27th, 2014 at 11:15 PM ^
I always love when "wtf?" respones come from someone with an almost equal or equally interesting username!
August 27th, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
Next up is the team nickname. University of Michigan [Sponser Name Here] Wolverines
August 27th, 2014 at 2:43 PM ^
I think this is pretty clever of the AD. Who's really going to complain about Twitter being used to make money? Most get-off-my-lawn types probably don't use it anyway.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:50 PM ^
Most "get-off-my-lawn" types are the willfully ignorant kind of people who say "Why would I use twitter? I don't care what you ate today!"
August 27th, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^
Uh, its spelled morans.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:55 PM ^
That's more a reflection of the tenor of the Internet than an indictment of Twitter:
August 27th, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^
there is literally nothing this (or, admittedly, ANY) athletic department will not do for a few bucks.
i'm not even annoyed by this low-rent stuff any more.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
They've never sold advertising in the stadium, so you are wrong about there being "literally nothing." And the stadium is a huge, huge exception.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
advertising in the stadium during Michigan football games. There, I fixed that for you. I don't know if the AD sold the ads or indirectly benefitted from them, but there were ads in the stadium for the soccer game. Did anybody perish as a result? I'm not taking a position one way or the other on this, just pointing out ads have been in the stadium.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:17 PM ^
Who cares if it's not a Michigan game?
Pro sports are advertising-fests - that's to be expected. Especially European soccer. Man U and Real might have even required it in order for us to host the game.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
was a Michigan game played in the Big House. It was sponsored by Arby's.
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-hockey/spec-rel/042010aaa.html
It also included this guy on the field during the game:
August 27th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
They've never sold advertising in the stadium during a football game.
They've sold advertising in the stadium.
They've had advertisements in the stadium during football games.
They just haven't sold advertising in the stadium during a football game.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^
...it was pretty obviously hyperbole, but fair enough - they haven't taken money for advertising inside the stadium. except for the ads that play on the jumbotron during tv commercial breaks, of course.
...this is a "which buggy whip is better" conversation anyway. there will eventually be advertising in the stadium. book it.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^
I can't believe the AD would stoop that low
This post brought to you by Dunning Toyota. Experience the Dunning Difference.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
From Wikipedia on Dr. Revelli, which reads like a collection of Bill Brasky stories:
"In the 1930s, General Motors divisions, Buick and Chevrolet, paid for the band to travel to away games. In a show of appreciation, Revelli had the band line up in a “Buck – I” formation at the 1938 Ohio State game. Then, while playing Buick’s theme song, the letter "I" moved between the "u" and the "c" in "Buck" spelling out "Buick." The next morning, athletic director Fielding H. Yost reportedly called Revelli at his home at 2:00 a.m. and said: "Young man, never do that again!” Yost did not approve of the injection of commercial advertising onto the college football field."
August 27th, 2014 at 3:31 PM ^
First, we have the Head Coach sponsored, then the Assistant Coach is sponsored and now the Official Twitter Site of Michigan Football is now sponsored (although I really don't care about Twitter - it is still the principal).
Next will be the Stadium, the jerseys then the team name.
All the while the ticket prices go up.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
I, for one, welcome our Michigan CrunchWrapSupremesNowForALimitedTimeOnlyAtTacoBell overlords!
August 27th, 2014 at 4:55 PM ^
I was expecting the Michigan McRibs
August 27th, 2014 at 3:42 PM ^
So if you object to donors' names being attached to the titles of the head coach and assistants, then I guess you also object to all the named professorships at the University of Michigan, because that's what they're akin to (not to any sort of sponsorship).
And it was a single tweet that was sponsored, not the entire Michigan football Twitter account.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:04 PM ^
I'm not sure I would compare a University of Michigan Professor to a Football Coach but I see I see a slippery slope where everything and anything can be named for a price. Where does it stop? At what point does it become superfluous?
August 27th, 2014 at 5:19 PM ^
People don't realize this, but Michigan has a memorial stadium because Yost didn't want it to be named after anyone, including himself.
BTW, take a look to your left and to the top and you'll see ads on MGoBlog. Are you going to stop readng it because of the advertisements for UGP Michigan Apparel and FeedTheChildren.org?
August 27th, 2014 at 9:53 PM ^
August 27th, 2014 at 5:41 PM ^
The jerseys have had advertising on them for a long time. At least, that's what I call that annoying adidas logo. It's an ad for Adidas, but I get your point. Whenever I see the LA Galaxy play soccer, I think of them as the Herbalife team, not the Galaxy.
August 27th, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^
No one will care how Dave Brandon rakes in the cash when Jim Harbaugh and his $7.5 million are walking the sidelines in 2015.
/s
August 27th, 2014 at 3:57 PM ^
I still contend that if DB has his way, the Big House is going to look like the "World's Largest Minor League Baseball Park." DB is an amoral revenue producing machine that is perpetually "on." Of course, he does all of this while talking about "tradition."
There are already advertisements on the TV screen. They are the "ice-breakers." It is only a matter of time.
https://www.google.com/search?q=advertisements+on+michigan+stadium+tv+s…
August 27th, 2014 at 5:31 PM ^
Three years ago (see http://www.footballscoop.com/news/78-archive-news/3500-michigan-ad-they…
Athletic directors are always searching for new revenue streams. Unlike most athletic departments, Michigan is one of the few schools that doesn’t make much money off in-stadium sponsorships at the Big House.
Apparently, it will remain that way in Ann Arbor.
AD Dave Brandon says the Michigan fans don’t want to see advertising in the stadium. They certainly don’t want the feel of a minor-league baseball stadium.
Brandon explains, “The first instinct is to play commercials and display advertising (in Michigan Stadium). We did research with our customers and they said don’t put the damn advertising in our stadium.
“Would I like the advertising streams? Yes, and does everyone else do it? Yes. Our customers didn’t want it.”
From November 2011 (see http://www.michigandaily.com/sports/brandon-talks-economics-michigan-at…):
“And the reason we do much less — we are pretty much the same as everybody with hockey; we’re the same as everybody with basketball. But the thing that distinguishes us as particularly different is we don’t allow advertising in Michigan Stadium. And that’s at a cost.
“In fact, based on what happens at Ohio State and Penn State and the bigger venues in our conference, if we were to decide to display advertising opportunities or commercial advertising opportunities on those video boards in Michigan Stadium, it would probably generate somewhere between five and six million dollars of incremental general. Which, for a $125 million business would be huge.
“So there’s a part of me that would like to do that. But there’s another part of me that knows I’d need police protection to get back and forth to work. Because, I’m a big believer, Sam Walton said, ‘If you don’t know what to do, ask your customer.’ And every bit of customer research that we’ve done with our fan base at Michigan Stadium tells us, ‘We’ll pretty much put up with everything but please don’t play commercials and please don’t commercialize the place.’
“So I’ve made a silent deal with out ticket holders and that is, I won’t put advertising in there and I’ll walk away from those revenue streams, but I’ve got to keep increasing your ticket prices. Because I have to be competitive.
“At the end of the day, we’re paying a price not to have advertising in our stadium. And that’s OK.”
Eleven months ago (see http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2013/09/university_of_mic…):
In an interview Monday, Sept. 9, Brandon reaffirmed an assertion he's made time and time again: advertising in the stadium will remain minimal.
"I don't believe we should be doing commercials, we should have billboards, we should have ribbon boards and throw in ads everywhere," he said. "I'm not in favor and would not advocate ever bringing the advertising that you see in virtually every other stadium in the country into Michigan Stadium."
Michigan Stadium is one of the only major football venues in the country that doesn't have ribbon boards with advertising. Notre Dame's stadium also doesn't have ribbon advertising.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:27 PM ^
It's not exactly new. Whenever they tweet a score during a game, it's always "The score, presented by Some Bank, is MIchigan 37 Opponent 0" or whatever, even though the bank rarely contributes to the actual score.
August 27th, 2014 at 5:32 PM ^
principle job was to administer student athletes.
August 27th, 2014 at 5:55 PM ^
Hmm, it says "presented by", not "sponsered by". Clearly our athletic department does not have the expertise to perform this analysis, so they contracted it out to the world's foremost experts in data analysis - Cadillac.
August 27th, 2014 at 6:01 PM ^
Brandon.
I do not like Dave Brandon
August 27th, 2014 at 6:23 PM ^
Chobani for life, baby. (or as long as they're official Michigan partners)
August 27th, 2014 at 6:44 PM ^
That is just so dumb.
August 27th, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^
Wading through all the false equivalencies and histrionics, the point (to my mind) is this: There's a fine line when you're trying to raise revenue. Yes, you can always use the money, but do you really need the money? This Athletic Department is running a surplus. Do they need to go after every low-brow, low-yield revenue stream like, say, having every tweet presented by a sponsor? Probably not. Yet they are. And it makes Michigan look really cheap.
It's the matter of discretion. It seems to me the amount of money garnered from a twitter sponsorship is probably miniscule in the grand scheme of a multi-million dollar surplus. A little discretion and taste goes a long way towards sustaining what made Michigan, well, Michigan for such a long time.