David Brandon at meeting for ushers this morning

They'll be like air marshals - dispersed among the crowd.  When OSU comes to town, we'll put 'em all in the visitors section to keep the peace.

106,304 people showed up to watch Michigan play East Dover Middle School Delaware State.  That was over capacity (albeit by 103 people).  What team could we possibly schedule that would draw fewer than that?

Methinks we could sell out Michigan Stadium regularly if capacity was 140,000.

formerly...just because there were empty seats doesn't mean they didn't sell. There is next to nothing you can do about people buying tickets and not showing up. We "sell out" the stadium because we sell all the tickets, not because there is a butt in every seat. I wish there was a maize and blue clad fan in every seat, but some people with season tickets choose to pay for and skip certain games.

1. Actually, yes they do. Try as the usher's might, there's simply no way for them to prevent people from crowding down where the middle aisles end in the corners. This results in gaps, which people then go down and occupy. This applies only to the student section where people stand, obviously, but that's also the only place in the stadium I ever notice any gaps.

Clearly not all of the space is accounted for in this. Students also tend to pack in like sardines, even with the seats also being very small in first place. You also have to account for the losers who show up at halftime as well as the even bigger losers who LEAVE at halftime. This represents some attendance problems for lesser games, but it also means that somebody bought a ticket, which is all that really matters financially, so that doesn't justify not adding more seats (especailly ones that are going for full price to wait-listed people and/or the general public).

2. Obviously that plays a large part in it, however you will never convince me that sideline roamers, and press box occupants can account for a little under 5,000 people for our record game. There isn't enough room for people even combined in those two spaces to account for that many people without having a bunch of them standing on the field or thuroughly in the way of the team.

3. Probably true, since I also recall the quote saying something to the effect that "They will be adding revenue one day". As far as I'm concerned though, having lots of rich people commit to paying that much for a luxury box is pretty much paid for. There is, in other words, very little chance this doesn't pay for itself. Add the fact that adding seats to the back of the endzones or even another deck to something that only rises about 30-50 feet off the ground, depending on where you are, and not taking advantage of changing the scoreboards to at least pad the capacity would be silly.

People moved down because people moved down dammit, you stand sideways, you use both the bench and the space in front of the bench to stand in, you get to know your neighbor really really really well. The student section is all about fitting as many people as possible as close to the field as possible. It was packed.

But the upside potential for great games is limited, while the downside potential for crappy games is not.

Say typical attendance is 110,000.  For a really good game, you can't realistically fit more than 111,000 or 112,000 people in the stadium.  However, for the really shitty games, there is no cap on the number of tickets that go unsold or unused.  In that way, three shitty games and three good games should (if demand was at all elastic) should create a lower turnout than six 'meh' games.

I went to the Little Brown Jug game versus Minnesota in the 1988 season. Rain was coming down in sheets, and the field was like a wet mop, (since 'Shoe was in the color guard, and it was his senior year, he may remember it). Michael Taylor was the QB.

Anyway, they quoted a shade more than 100k in attendance at the game, even though it was obvious that there were sections with empty rows. At the time, I figured they must have thrown open the gates and let in anyone with a pulse. Either that, or they stretched the definition of what it meant to be "in attendance."

But it's still close enough to capacity to indicate that the demand would be there for more seats if they were available.  Games against UMass and Baby Seal U will have more drop-off, but if you added more seats, I think you would see an increase in absolute attendance (even if it results in a slight worse "percentage of capacity" number).

I think this largely depends on your perspective.  Personally, I'd rather see a 125,001 seat stadium in which only 118,000 are filled against crappy opponents (and filled against MSU, OSU, ND, etc.) than a 109,901 seat stadium packed to the gills every week.  Some people (quite reasonably) prefer a packed house to a bigger crowd.  I prefer the latter.

Having the biggest stadium would be cool and all, but the sheer magesty of a 260,001 seat Big House, having the title of largest venue in the world (Mwahahaha), would be phenomenal.

They complete each other.

If they were complimentary, they would say things like "Hi.  Nice tie!"