Dave Brandon says students actually aren't showing up
Contrary to the "everyone is just squeezed in", Dave Brandon claims that students aren't showing up for kick off, or at all-
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121116/SPORTS0201/211160345/Michig…
Last weekend, athletic director Dave Brandon said there were 11,000 empty seats — there are approximately 22,000 student tickets — for the noon kickoff against Northwestern. It only sparsely filled in as the game went on.
Apparently it's a problem at big, non-early games too.
For the 3:30 p.m. kickoff against Michigan State on Oct. 20, there were 3,500 no-shows, Brandon said. And, another 1,000 students came in and validated their tickets to re-sell, bringing the total to 4,500 no-shows.r
Though it's not not just Michigan Students-
There is a trend," Brandon said. "I talked to my colleagues across college football and it's becoming more and more difficult to deal with the number of no-shows in the student section and the fact they arrive so late."
There seems to be an actually change over time by students, if not just by locale.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
Granted, I'm a huge football fan, but this just boggles my mind. Perhaps trimming the student section isn't such a wild idea.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:17 AM ^
It leads me to wonder if the last few years of the Carr era and the RR experiment have led to a disinterested student base. These kids are all too young to remember 1997. Too young to care much about Desmond, Woodson, and company. Too young to remember bomb dogs at OSU, Jim Cooper, or expecting to win every game, every year.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:47 AM ^
Even I don't remember Jim Cooper.
November 16th, 2012 at 7:23 PM ^
You may have heard of one of his relatives, though, by the name of John.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:54 PM ^
2006 was pretty damn interesting (though it was a year with the bad home schedule).
November 16th, 2012 at 9:17 PM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 1:22 PM ^
And the "Carr era/RR experiment" malaise is infecting the whole country?
November 16th, 2012 at 4:17 PM ^
Does anyone else have a hard time putting the Carr era and RR experiment in the same category? One of those resulted in a national championship and perennial bowl game appearances and winning records... the other one, not so much.
November 16th, 2012 at 7:02 PM ^
I believe the poster was referring to the last few years of the Carr era, which included the most embarassing loss in Michigan history (the Horror), a demolition by Oregon, and a failure to recruit competently.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:14 PM ^
All of Carr's recruiting classes were ranked highly. People are making the guy sound like he was Ron Zook and his recruiting fell off a cliff at the end. That's not true. His classes look worse than they really were in large part because 1) Mallett, the centerpiece of the offensive recruits, left and 2) a horrible defensive staff replaced his own.
November 17th, 2012 at 9:16 PM ^
so by "the last few years" you mean the first two games of his last season, which ended in a long win streak and a big upset over Florida in a bowl?
let's forget the three Rose Bowls in the previous 4 seasons, too.
November 17th, 2012 at 9:06 PM ^
or the constant diet of snakky cakes?
November 16th, 2012 at 12:34 PM ^
Trimming the student section isn't the solution nor is raising prices. What we really should do is make student tickets free, first come first serve at the gate. Then you couldn't sell tickets and no more waking up late or tailgating into game time because seats won't be there.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:48 PM ^
Give us hard logical reasons why trimming the student section isn't the solution to the problem of many thousands of students routinely not showing up for games, when at the same time there are multi-year waits for regular fans to become eligible to get season tickets.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:17 PM ^
I am ok with trimming the student section but worry about the ways in which it would be done. Since the issue seems to be that students who have bought tickets are not coming...how will the trimming of the section selectively exclude them and not somone who attends the games. I just worry about a scenario in which people like freshman (who hypothetically would go to the games) or good fans are left out and people who are casual fans, at best, receive tickets due to their credit standing...In that situation, we have shrunk the student section and still kept all of the shitty fans there - double whammy.
November 16th, 2012 at 2:01 PM ^
2) require that students meet attendance minimums and enter the stadium promptly
3) give ticket priority to students who meet or exceed these guidelines and determine seating based in attendance criteria first
November 16th, 2012 at 7:33 PM ^
This is clearly the way to do it. As a student, I don't want to camp out before every home game and waste hours of my time. I should, however, be rewarded next year for showing up on time throught this year when my seats are assigned next year. And I shouldn't have to prove my arrival time on some shitty HAIL app with spotty service when a ticket could do it for me much more easily.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:21 PM ^
Because there are plenty of students that want those seats. I think that's pretty obvious with the amount of students there are. The reason the student section doesn't fill is because students already have the tickets and can 1) be late because they still have that seat and 2) choose not to show up if they don't care about losing their money.
The student section is the only thing that makes the stadium somewhat loud. Other than that it's dead half the time.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:50 PM ^
thats what UF basketball does. Tickets are free, but the students put their name into a lottery, if you get a ticket and you don't go to the game you cant put your name in for the next 3 games.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:33 PM ^
A lot of basketball teams do this from what I've heard.
November 16th, 2012 at 2:36 PM ^
If you don't do the former?
If you have a seat for everyone, and they didn't even pay for it, doesn't that decrease the value and reason to go? Now if you trimmed the section in half, and then instituted your policy, it'd be full. But without trimming you're going to get empty seats every game.
November 16th, 2012 at 6:32 PM ^
You don't have a seat for everyone though. There are a lot of students that can't buy tickets or couldn't get tickets. The students paying for tickets aren't the only people that want tickets, just the people that had the money to buy them. Whether they chose to go to the game, arrive late, or sell them is up to them.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:11 PM ^
...the first come, first served general admission style of seating. But I'm not a student these days so what do I know.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't imagine not going to the game when I was a student. Granted we didn't have the sweet television setups that people have today (but how many students really have that option?).
Not sure I understand this trend, anyone have any possible explanations?
November 16th, 2012 at 10:49 AM ^
I think sometimes it's just easier for people to recover from their Friday night drunkenness by watching the game on a high-definition TV.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:01 AM ^
False. The best way for students to recover from their Friday night drunkenness is to wake up at 8am, crack open that ice cold Natty Light, hop in the shower, play pong for a few hours, and then head to the game. Worked for me every time.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:11 AM ^
Noon games were perfect. Keep the buzz going from Friday night. Crash for a few hours after the game and repeat the process Saturday night.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:15 AM ^
It's true. 3:30 games require you to actually deal with the hangover rather than waking up still drunk.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:22 PM ^
330 Games give you more time to be blackout by powering thru the hangover.
November 16th, 2012 at 1:51 PM ^
i'm not a rookie, i'm a retired veteran. speaking of rookie though, do you really need more than 3 hours to get blackout? sounds like you should work on your efficiency.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:52 AM ^
Probably just too many students getting tickets because it's the thing to do, not because they are die hard fans. The problem with shrinking the student section is taking the tickets away from the students that don't care without keeping out die hards.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
i can't speak to how it's changed, but i can make some observations from this year and last year as a grad student with tickets. i have been in a group both years with fellow students in the nursing school. when march rolls around and the idea of buying tickets in a group is brought up, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and wants in. people seem to come to the first game - school hasn't really started, weather is nice, good excuse to tailgate/get drunk, etc. One girl in my group hasn't come to a single game since then. One friend hasn't come to a single game because her boyfriend would rather tailgate then go to the game. I've bought a lot of her tickets for friends who wanted to go, but she didn't mention that she wasn't going to the msu game and i didn't specifically ask her, assuming she'd at least go to that game - but she didn't, and her ticket was completely unused. The other people who come in my group come to maybe 50% of the games, always come late (mid 1st quarter or beyond), prefer talking to watching the game, and always leave early. this seems to hold true for the majority of people we sit around (row 64ish). come late, leave early, lots of picture taking for facebook, lots of texting, lots of drunkenly falling all over. my conclusion is a LOT of people who buy tickets don't enjoy football, but do it b.c it's cool and they do enjoy the tailgating. i'm not sure what you do to discourage this though. raising ticket prices would be criminal for those of us who go to games to (gasp) actually watch football.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
not the Facebook thing obviously, but there have always been students who bought tickets because it was cool and who were more interested in getting drunk/talking. I just don't get why it's apparently getting worse.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:39 AM ^
I think the current undergrads didn't get hooked on football in the same way that many of us were. Freshmen arrived to see 5-7 Rich Rodriguez teams and never got hooked. Die-hards couldn't take the disappointment week after week and had to care a little less. Kids started doing other things on Saturdays; it was more fun.
Also, being a sports fan isn't as cool anymore. When I was 18 we all played NCAA and Madden and Fifa incessantly. Now I'm nerdy because I still play those and not Modern Warfare or Skyrim or whatever the kids are doing these days. They generally don't wear jerseys around and watch Sportscenter highlights. It's just a different and less sports-centered generation, maybe.
November 16th, 2012 at 2:37 PM ^
As noted in the article, it is happening all over the country, not just places that didn't have success in 2008. I mean, at MSU, their group of freshman has seen their best run of success in almost 40 years at that school in football. Yet, they have even worse problems than UM does in terms of students showing up.
Like others, it is more of a generational/technology thing - you now can watch the game on 60" flat screen (or your phone, or your computer - whatever) and not have to go through the "difficulty" of actually getting off your butt, shaking off your sleepiness/hangover, getting dressed, watiing in line, etc. Combine that with Michigan's student section being huge, so that pretty much any student who (at least in theory) that is somewhat interested can get a ticket, along with no real penalty/benefit at UM if you show up on time (if at all) -- you're going to have a lot no-shows.
November 16th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^
Even top 10 Florida had an almost empty student section around kickoff a couple of weeks ago.
November 16th, 2012 at 3:36 PM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 10:31 PM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 4:00 PM ^
I totally agree. I'm a freshman and the idea of not showing for a game is crazy to me. There's nothing better than a Saturday at the Big House.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:44 AM ^
Dave, we need moar advertising to get student's to show up
/Brandon'd
November 16th, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 11:48 AM ^
November 16th, 2012 at 11:20 AM ^
...uniformz!
November 16th, 2012 at 10:48 AM ^
When I first arrived in Madison in the early 2000's, I incessantly mocked rabid Badger fans about the UW student section arriving very late - or not at all - for many games. I constantly claimed "when I was at Michigan, the student section was always full and arrived in time for kickoff". I'm apparently very old since my statement is no longer true at UM, and I'm dismayed by this fact. Now get off my lawn.
November 16th, 2012 at 10:53 AM ^
Having spent the 2009 season in the upper bowl of the student section, I can attest to two things:
1) it's mainly underclassmen who are there more for the social scene than the game
2) There is little to no coordination among the students as in other sports on campus. The upperclassmen need to take control and organize the students. They are a rudderless ship
November 16th, 2012 at 10:54 AM ^
Full disclosure, I spent the 2006 season in much better seats of the student section and these problems did not exist. People showed up, on time, and were rocking for the entire game.
November 16th, 2012 at 11:04 AM ^
When I was an upperclassman I didn't have time to go to games. I watched on tv , sometimes, other times listened to the games on radio while trying to get homework done.
/engineering'd
November 16th, 2012 at 11:11 AM ^
Pretty much my story as well.
November 16th, 2012 at 12:47 PM ^
You can make time, it's all about what's important to you. I don't mean to imply that choosing to not go to games is wrong or anything, but I got a BSE and MSE in 4.5 years and never missed a game. I missed a lot of sleep, but never a game.