Alabama taking away student seating priv(i)ledges due to leaving early
Summary: Saban and Alabama officials are upset students have been leaving games early so they are imposing a clause which is in the ticketing rule. 20 student organizations (mainly greek orgs) will no longer get priority to sit together in blocks. It will be open seating throughout the student section.
Not exactly a big punishment but it is petty even if it was clearly stated up front.
I find it interesting the powers that be in college football have been making decisions for years which have nothing to do with the students interest. Most of the decisions have been made to increase TV viewership. And yet, athletic departments and coaches can't understand why students are showing up late and leaving early.
October 26th, 2013 at 8:48 AM ^
He's got a five star athlete waiting for that spot on the sideline if he doesn't like how the current one stands there.
Let's go with uninterested, though. They are certainly not disinterested because they have a stake in the team winning.
October 26th, 2013 at 8:25 PM ^
I have to admit, since I've been taking pictures on the sidelines at EMU games, I've had a deeper appreciation for things. Granted it's EMU but still....
October 26th, 2013 at 5:51 AM ^
that we expanded the size of the student section a few years ago? And if so, how big was it before and exactly how big is it now?
October 26th, 2013 at 10:06 AM ^
Yes. A quick google search shows at the very least it was expanded in 2002, 2006, (I think) again after that, and then finally by 1000 seats in 2011. There were many years when some student tickets (I think they were grad and medical students, if memory serves) were in an overflow section in the opposite end zone, too.
There used to be a really good Detroit News article that had the specific numbers, but it's no longer online.
October 26th, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
Yes. I was a victim of the 2011 expansion. I got kicked out of my longtime seats in Section 34, something I was mightily pissed about at the time. Imagine how even more pissed I was when I looked across the stadium from my new seats in section 18, only to see my old seats and hundreds others around them empty!
I'm over it now because in reality my new seats are much better seats. My main irriation was over being split up from the folks around me I was used to stiiting with. And I enjoyed sitting right next to the student section without actually being in it.
October 26th, 2013 at 6:24 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:06 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:41 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 8:31 AM ^
the problem is that 18 - 22 year olds are motivated by sex and alcohol - which is a downgrade from the 60's and 70's of sex, drugs and rock n roll.
I don't understand why people talk about punishing groups of people. This is suppose to be entertainment and support of your school. Part of the issue is that college students, in general, have certain "expectations" for their football entertainment. 1) it needs to be 80 degrees outside. This can be a problem in Ann Arbor. I saw a lot of students last week with their T-shirt only and it rained and was in the 40's (uh - they left). 2) game times need to fit their sleeping habits ... noon games will always be an issue for student attendance.
I tend to agree that the size of the student section needs to be reduced (look at MBB at Crisler Center and the puny size of the Maize Rage section). I don't think it needs to be reduced by much - but by at least an amount that would make going to the game a "priority" for them. I would also sell the upper portion of the stadium to season ticket holders and put the student section lower. Better seats for the students and there wouldn't be as large of an empty area in the stands.
Go Blue!
October 26th, 2013 at 10:11 AM ^
Puny size of the Maize Rage?
The first season I had student tickets for basketball, in the last throes of Amaker, I was sitting in the second to last row of the upper bowl. You didn't get bleacher tickets until you were a sophomore or junior. The last season I had student tickets, four seasons later, there were something like less than 300 season ticket holders. Bleacher tickets were sold to the general public for every single game. They were piling pizzas for us as rewards for actually showing up. It's not like that anymore.
No, the current Maize Rage is not "puny." That was puny.
October 26th, 2013 at 12:20 PM ^
to the number of seats and rows for the Maize Rage, court side as compared to places like msu or ohio.
Go Blue!
October 26th, 2013 at 12:50 PM ^
But those courtside bleacher seats are not the only Maize Rage seats in the hosue. There are plenty more that you don't see on TV.
October 26th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
So it seems that the real culprit in all of this may in fact be rock-n-roll....
October 26th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 1:00 PM ^
News Flash . . . students have always wanted to drink and have sex. Yet they still also used to show up for 6 or 7 football games a year.
It has been decades since you could drink at the stadium. And as far as I recall, you were never allowed to have sex in the stadium. Yet the students still came to games.
The games have been been televised for decades. The 1:00 game that is not on TV anywhere has not been around for years. Yet the students still came to games.
Students have always had busy schedules and hard courses and limited free time at Michigan. Yet the students still came to games.
So what's changed? There has to be more to it than just high-def TV. It's worth finding out what.
October 26th, 2013 at 2:05 PM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 9:42 PM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 6:52 AM ^
The AL.com story - HERE - fills in some details about how far this could go.
Essentially, this being the first "offense", they lose the block seating for just this game. If it happens again, they lose it for the rest of the season and, in both cases, take a hit on points for tickets for 2014. The third offense would mean a ban in 2014 as well. Apparently, this is a serious thing in the student seating handbook.
There is also a photo of the student section only sparsely populated during the Georgia State game, which I assume is an example of what prompted this.
October 26th, 2013 at 7:18 AM ^
When I got to UM in 1971 booze was allowed into the stadium, but capacity crowds were infrequent. From '71 through the '74 season, there were exactly 5 capacity crowds total. I can assure you that the student sections were far from filled, regardless of the fact that we could bring beer and wine in.
They started cracking down on openly bringing booze into the stadium sometime during the '80s or early '90s, by which time we'd already had our string of consecutive games over 100K going for some time. The issues with student attendance have arisen in the last several years.
In other words, allowing booze in the stadium won't cure the problem.
What I'd like to know is the historical record of how many seats have been allotted to the students over the last couple of decades. If it's true, as some assert here, that the student section was increased in size a few years ago, then it would seem sort of obvious that the section needs to be reduced in size to what it had been before.
October 26th, 2013 at 7:34 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:55 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:20 AM ^
and force them to play on kick coverage while trying to text at the same time. I'd pay good money to watch the carnage.
October 26th, 2013 at 7:36 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:38 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 7:21 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 8:55 AM ^
I like it. The rest would go scalp a ticket a few minutes before/after kickoff for right around regular price. If you're not early, you pay like everyone else. Great idea!
October 26th, 2013 at 9:14 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 8:40 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 8:42 AM ^
If Saban wants students to stay to the end of the game perhaps he should stop winning by 50+ friggin' points.
October 26th, 2013 at 8:43 AM ^
Even if they shrink the student section, would those tickets sell to the general public? If they keep this Dynamic pricing, then I think not. It's amazing to me that you can still buy tickets to the Nebraska game and Ohio game over at mgoblue.com right now. How are they not sold out yet? It's becasue they are way overpriced. It is pretty sad that you can get tickets cheaper on stub hub than directly from the university. I needed an extra ticket to the Minnesota game and was going to buy one from mgoblue, I said screw it after I found out they wanted a service fee and a transaction fee to go along with the ticket price. Just squeezing as much money out of ticket holders as they possibly can.
October 26th, 2013 at 8:53 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 9:01 AM ^
The seats all appear to be singles, so that might be a factor, but I agree that cost must have something to do with it. Singles in the end zones for OSU are $235. That's an awful lot of money to pay to sit by yourself.
October 26th, 2013 at 9:06 AM ^
I wonder how many of those will be wearing red jersies next month, yelling to their red jersied friends a couple rows away.
October 26th, 2013 at 9:16 AM ^
I've said it before and got hammered for it, but...
At Michigan, at least, I think a major part of it is the decrease in in-state students. Out-of-state and international students majorly do not have a deep connection to Michigan football. When a growing percentage of your student body doesn't have a deep connection to the state and to the team... well, is it that surprising that they don't care?
October 26th, 2013 at 11:14 AM ^
You probably got hammered for it because it doesn't make that much sense. OOS students only make up around 35 percent of the student body, was the ratio that much different a few years ago when there weren't attendance "problems"? Also, a huge percentage of OOS students are legacies and thus probably have as deep or a greater connection to the team than the average person who simply grew up in the state. Furthermore, many OOS kids picked Michigan over competing schools because of the combined athletic-academic experience that it offers. Finally, what does having a deep connection to the state has to do with anything?
October 26th, 2013 at 11:16 AM ^
That's a lot of assumptions based on faulty data.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-sees-increase-in-ou…
October 26th, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
Your "data" is one year of admissions where the percentage of OOS students increase by a few percentage points?
The total enrollment has increased by over 3.5 thousand in the past 4 years. There is still the same amount, if not more in-state students at Michigan today as there was before the attendance problems started to occur. In the very article that you posted it states that "in 2002 U-M enrolled 1,827 non-resident freshmen, 801 fewer out-of-state students than this year. Also in 2002 overall freshmen enrollment levels were at 5,187 — 984 students fewer than this year. Of the enrollment difference between those two years, roughly 81 percent is comprised of non-resident students." Thus, the amount of in-state students increased by almost 200 kids from 2002-2012.
October 26th, 2013 at 2:57 PM ^
According to a 2011 Senate Fiscal Agency report, 47% of Michigan students are out-of-state. Up the road, it's 24% at Michigan State. If out-of-state enrollment (which includes international students) has gone up each year since then, what does it say about Michigan out-of-state enrollment? And you're really stretching it with unsubstantiated claims that a lot of them are legacies, etc. There's no way of knowing that.
See: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131020/OPINION01/310200006
Point is, OOS enrollment is up at the state's flagship public university.
October 26th, 2013 at 3:14 PM ^
Okay, but in-state enrollment is also up. The OP's claim was that a declining amount of in-state students was a reason for the lack of attendance. The premise of that argument is false.
October 26th, 2013 at 9:20 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 9:21 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 9:36 AM ^
First and foremost our current GA policy I insane and actually punished early arrival by forcing seating down low. If we're going to go GA make it actual GA and let the students sit where they want.
I would advocate now a simple "first come, first served" policy and make the seats FREE for anyone showing a valid student ID. Let them sit where they want and with who they want. You want early arrivals? That would do it. You want full student section? That would do it. And this would also start the football game "habit" that will lead to alumni ticket purchases in the future.
October 26th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^
Like you I have come pretty far towards the student's viewpoint on seating. When I was at NU my ex girlfriend got the University to impose a "student activities fee" in exchange for free admission to all sporting events. Now that NU has had a few pretty good years of football I would be curious to see if the student ID policy has helped attendance.
October 26th, 2013 at 10:16 AM ^
Yep, that's how NU does it, though with a much smaller student population that tends to be slightly disinterested in sports.
The kicker is grad students aren't included.
October 26th, 2013 at 11:30 AM ^
Also, how do you know the NU undergrad is not as interested as other schools? The football team is as good now as ever.
October 26th, 2013 at 11:48 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 11:56 AM ^
Because it's pretty obvious once you spend about five minutes on campus that NU is a much, much different place than a school like Michigan or Ohio State in terms of sports interest. It's a small, private, bookish university that pretty much has to coax itself into giving a shit when Gameday isn't in town.
Hell, come basketball season, they're pretty much bribing students to show up. Free tickets aren't enough.
October 26th, 2013 at 9:47 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 11:42 AM ^
October 26th, 2013 at 9:50 AM ^
but i think it would make sense to sell student tickets a la carte before the season. and whatever seats aren't sold before a certain cut off date become open to the general alumni/population.