Three days ago, I received an email invite from the AD and Phire Branding to participate in a survey. I'm guessing I am not the only one who was invited, but neverless thought I'd share it with MGoNation in case it was not widely distributed.
The body of the email stated:
"University of Michigan Athletics has contracted Phire Branding Company to perform the following brief survey. The goal of the survey is to provide Michigan Athletics with a better understanding of how to connect and build stronger relationships with their supporters. The information will be kept confidential and will not be used for solicitation. Results will remain anonymous and are not cross-referenced."
Please help do your part in supporting Michigan Athletics by responding with your suggestions on how the Athletic Department could better connect and builder stronger relationships with its supporters.
It costs twice as much to send the band than the football team. I think the football team might be a little more important. Does the band really bring 400-500k worth of value to the game? I don't think so. The AD is already (presumably) sending the band to ND, OSU, B1G Championship game (if we play to our full potential), and a bowl. Asking them to send the band to more games is kinda absurd. I'll probably get attacked for this. How dare I have a different opinion.
I'd agree if we were tight on cash. Sure it's not imperative, but the whole point of having a $100million + budget and multi-million dollar surpluses year after year is so that we can afford luxuries that other schools can't - like providing the live soundtrack to our football team.
And if money is the problem, I'm sure Michigan has enough money!
This is ridiculous
BTW, is Bama sending their band?
....and within budget, of course, how mini is mini? We wouldn't want to do anything that our AD deems excessive.
send that mariachi band that appeared in the chemistry class Zorro caper a few weeks ago? Better than nothing.
April 21st, 2012 at 11:02 AM ^
counts as $70 a ticket to see UMass which benefits him. DB will always be for it if it benefits him. A lot of people took last year's FB ticket increase in stride because there was no way DB could raise ticket prices for the 2012 season season with the crappy home schedule we have. You know what happens when you assume.
Yes.
The road games they go to are within reasonable traveling distance. This is a road game (whether you like it or not) not a bowl game and it's REALLY far away. Why aren't people mad that we aren't sending them to Nebraska this year, or Iowa last year, or any of the countless road games that aren't within busing distance?
In essense, Michigan and Alabama are sharing a "home game" in exchange for a big check. We should have all the trappings of a home game, especially since Alabama will have their home luxuries.
That's not even getting to the PR nightmare where the world perceives the Michigan AD as so cash-strapped that the football team has to play without a band to cheer them on.
I think it's a big topic of discussion during GameDay, absolutely.
Whether Brandon cares or not is a good question, but apparently he's getting a ton of negative feedback.
Which one of your teachers needs to be fired?
April 21st, 2012 at 11:08 AM ^
float a trial ballon like so many politicians do and he has done in the past to guage the public's perception. The ONLY thing Brandon cares about is the bottom line.
Despite constantly talking about "branding" and the Michigan image, this decision seems to fly in the face of what is good for "branding." A huge national TV audience and Michigan is to cheap to send the band. I can see that being turned into a negative recruiting tool.
April 21st, 2012 at 10:07 AM ^
April 21st, 2012 at 10:23 AM ^
The team is not spending two weeks in Dallas like a bowl game. The team is not staying on campus like a home game. The transportation expenses for this game are just a little bit more than busing the team from an Ann Arbor hotel using buses owned by the University.
I don't see anyone asking them to send the band to more games (plural) . . . just this one additional game - which, let's not forget, is taking the place of a home game for us.
The ND and OSU games are not funded by the AD. The band takes care of that.
$400-500k is a pretty good rate for a 4 hour commercial for the University of Michigan athletic department. The band should be there. The world's best fight song, "The Victors," should be there.
The kickstart idea has been thrown around, and I'm in full support (with both effort and money). But doesn't it set kind of a bad precedent that when Brandon poorly plans something and the experience will be missing an important element, the fans have to organize an independent fundraising project to get that element back? If you can't send the band to a "home" game, then ask for more money in the deal, don't sign the contract, or go the fans yourself with your hand out in an organized way, which DB has plenty of experience doing.
I can't comment on the exact nature of the relationship between the band and AD, although there are definitely people qualified to answer that.
I will say that I believe the AD's responsibility is to maximize this "experience". For all the hassle this game has been for season ticket holders, students, fans that actually reside in the state of Michigan, ect. this game needs to be an event to remember. Instead, we're sitting here talking about Alabama having their fight song and no Victors. That seems out of whack to me, especially since the same department is projecting an eight figure surplus (that it cannot keep).
The MMB is an ensemble of the School of Music. Athletics doesn't pay for normal away game trips, though it has in the past offered to do so for bigger games (for instance, the MMB almost travelled to the 2006 PSU game based on the team wanting them there, but it ended up falling through when PSU couldn't give us seats). Athletics pays for the MMB to attend bowl games.
Yet the point here is this is not a normal road game, nor has Athletics treated it as such until Dave Brandon feigned sticker shock on the cost of the band. Yet as I pointed out yesterday, Athletics knows exactly how much it costs to send a band somewhere, as it deals with the costs of such a thing every year during bowl planning. If they didn't intend to take the band for cost reasons, the information to make that decision was readily available before the contract was even signed and that could have been stated to the band far earlier. Dave Brandon has acted as if it was some sort of surprise. Not so much.
If this is a fishing expedition to save Athletics $400k and get a donor to step up, it's an awfully risky PR decision to do so. And far beneath the pale of what Michigan stands for. It's the kind of decision you make at a University facing a deficit, not an $11 million surplus and a $5 million payout for a neutral-site home game.
This is my last year at Michigan. The game in Dallas is "replacing" one of the home games of my last year here. I'm paying a ridiculous amount of money to see Michigan play in an NFL stadium in a situation where doing a home-and-home would've been twice as awesome but wouldn't have made as much money. So, when the sales pitch for doing the game at a very expensive (but TERRIBLE place to watch a football game) stadium is that it's a great opportunity to make more money for the program, don't complain about not having the money to send the band there. If Bama were coming here, we'd have the band here and then no one would care that the band didn't travel to Tuscaloosa the following year. Plus, I don't know if it's just me, but I'd think band members putting in all those hours would like to have the opportunity to play at more than six home games. Not to mention the fact that people around here have said the band itself pays for the trips to rival away games (although don't know if that's true for sure).
This topic is sooooooooo yesterday.
FARRRRRRRRRRRRRRLES the moose.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!
listening to DBs LAME remarks....him saying if theres anybody out there that wants to fund the band please CALL HIM???? isnt that YOUR JOB DAVE BRANDON??? Im getting to dislike him more and more
This is not a good call. When you schedule Michigan, you should get the whole Michigan experience!
I think David will figure this out. It's just going to be painful along the way.
Go Blue!
if Bama wasn't bringing there band I could see us not, but I don't think we should let Bama upstage us. We are College Football!!! isn't that what we said last year?? College Football means Marching Band, not hokey piped in music.
It's not DB's job to do what you all think is best. It's to do what he thinks is best for Michigan Athletics. No one here has enough information to understand his decision making process, so it is completely pointless that all of our fans are whining about this.
I'll stop having an opinion about matters relating to Michigan football, and just put my trust in DB. In the meantime, let me know when he's settled on an explanation for his "decision making process," so I'll know how to properly parrot my support.
I'm not saying don't have an opinion. But the amount of uproar surrounding this situation is unneccessary.
HAH?!
April 20th, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^
First of all, WE ARE NOT THE HOME TEAM FOR THIS GAME.... Bama is the considered the 'home' team. Sorry everyone saying we are the home team is driving me nuts.
Heres an idea, I've read that the Athletic Department flips the bill for the band to attend Bowl Games.... Well since we didn't go to a Bowl Game back-to-back years we should have more then enough to send the band to Dallas, as a matter of fact, we should be able to do it twice. DB is just being a tight whad. Either that or he blew the money by putting a committee together to deside if we should have a mascot or not....
"Are people still pissed like I am?"
Let me put it this way: Mel Gibson is a fraud when it come to comparing his "anger" to mine!!
I DESERVE TO BE BLOWN BEFORE THE FUCKING JACUZZI!