Expand the Maize Rage (Wasserman - Michigan Daily)
Wasserman's column is spot on -- link: https://www.michigandaily.com/sports/daniel-wasserman-expand-maize-rage
Less than an hour before game time, the building was dead — save for a slew of corporate and University ads and the occasional chorus of boos or cheers when the teams entered or exited the floor. Though nearly every student seat was filled 50 minutes before game time, the lack of buzz was palpable with two-thirds of the students a great distance from the floor and only a handful of non-students already in the building. It was a stark contrast from the game in East Lansing a month earlier, when the Breslin Center atmosphere was fully charged well over an hour before tip-off.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^
But seriously, with the energy in the program right now, seize the opportunity to make it a premier home venue. How much revenue lost are we talking about of the Maize Rage is expanded.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^
i doubt there are many who disagree.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^
Please let this happen. Our student section is too small and, more importantly, not rowdy enough. They need more cheers than just "LET'S GO, BLUE <clap> LET'S GO, BLUE <clap>" and "LET'S GO, MICHIGAN <clap clap clapclapclap> "LET'S GO, MICHIGAN <clap clap clapclapclap>"
February 26th, 2014 at 11:40 AM ^
though expanding won't help that. Don't understand why the hockey student crowd can be so creative (so I've heard) and the BB and FB students not.
Yes the FB students are being drowned out by endless overly loud piped in music, and that has to end, but why don't they take the initiative and end it? Meet with Brandon and change it, come up with their own list of music and creative cheers. Would be great to see new chants from the students at FB games, and as the years went on, the best would stick around and we'd see new ones. The piped-in music guy needs to be an ally, not an enemy.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:19 PM ^
Hmmm, bring the "slutty sister" chant to Crisler? I am on board.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:58 PM ^
I could be wrong, but I think I've heard somewhere that the Hockey section has either no or a different affiliation with the university/sport allowing for more "colorful" cheers.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:18 PM ^
Yost is not nearly as intimidating as it was 10 years ago, and nowhere near when the NCAA letting us host a regional was basically a ticket to the Frozen Four because the crowd would just beat the opponent into submission.
February 26th, 2014 at 4:14 PM ^
After going to a few games per year up until about 2007 and going to a few games last year adn this year, the atmosphere of Yost is a shell of it's former self.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
The section as a whole is not too small, 25% of seats are students which is very high. It's that the majority are too far away to make any real impact on the atmosphere. It's pretty ridiculous that there are no students behind the backboard. That actually can disrupt opponents shooting, and it looks great on TV during free throws (hear that DB, great on TV!)
February 26th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
There should absolutely be students behind both backboards. Look at Breslin and Cameron Indoor. Those are great student sections. They're loud and rowdy, which is (except for a few times here and there) the opposite of Michigan.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
And yet, Michigan has the Big Ten's best home record over the past three years - yes, better than even Sparty.
This smacks of confirmation bias. Michigan has a reputation for being quiet based on years past, so people go into games looking for things to criticize (like the crowd not being full at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning). Suspend your age-old bias and actually listen to how the crowd is at a typical Michigan game nowadays, and you'll find that our crowds are pretty good. At the end of the day, it's the record that counts, and no one in our league can match us.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
Concur that at the end of the day only W's count but what about venue's such as Seattle's "celebrated" 12th man that can influence the game.
Right now M may have a A squad and doesn't need the help, but what about years when they only have a B squad and are sitting on the bubble. That little extra bump from the crowd may mean a free throw miss and can help the team make a tourney.
February 26th, 2014 at 4:08 PM ^
Wait so in a three year period where we have won the big ten, gone to a national championship game and lead the big ten we have won a lot at home? That's crazy it must be the fans. Or maybe crisler only gets occasionally loud, is pretty shitty during non-rivalry games and overall doesn't compare to other venues but the team is just really good so we win a lot, that might explain it.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:14 PM ^
One problem with this unfortunately is the setup of Crisler, mainly the giant tunnel behind one of the backboards that opponents always seem to be shooting at during the second half.
February 26th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
The band sits above that tunnel and does their thing, which is fine. But why not move the students from 130 to behind the other backboard (sections 114 and 116 for those who care to look it up)
February 26th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
They will never do it. I wish they would, but they will not. The reason why needs no explanation.
February 26th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^
Correction: David Brandon will never do it. David Brandon will also be lucky to be here in 2-3 years.
February 26th, 2014 at 4:11 PM ^
Why will he be lucky to be here in 2-3 years? Is the increased revenue of the AD going to get him fired? The increased success of michigan sports during his tenure? The solid coaching hires? Yeah i'm sure the ire of the mgoblogosphere will overcome all of that soon.
Crisler was redesigned under bill martin, it is a shitty set up for a stadium and would need to be completely stripped down in the seating bowl to create something worthwhile which is a shame.
February 26th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^
Both men's and women's basketball has gotten better white he has been here. Hockey and football have not.
February 27th, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
What is he supposed to do about hockey? fire red? football hoke is recruiting well, we have good coordinators and hoke has another year to prove himself, we are also almost certainly better than the rich rod years. In addition swimming and gymnastics have both won national championships, we created mens and womens lacrosse, tennis, volleyball, and wrestling are all doing well, we made a great hire for baseball and all the non revenue sports are getting upgrades. The athletic department is doing better under him, there is no way around it even if you don't like his policies around football,
February 26th, 2014 at 11:44 AM ^
It's becoming a tired jab but it still rings true - Dave Brandon won't expand the Maize Rage significantly because it doesn't make more money and it may upset old rich alums (who are probably showing up 5 minutes before the game and then will sit there quietly throughout)
February 26th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 11:56 AM ^
More full than the non-student lower bowl seats.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:50 PM ^
That's comparing apples and oranges, because the courtside student seats are first-come, first served while the other seats are reserved. There is a prime incentive for arriving early if you are a student, while none exists for non-students.
Altogether, the student section (including upper-deck) is maybe 75-80% full for a typical game. There is usually an entire empty block of seats in the upper deck, in the upper part of the student section.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:42 PM ^
Yeah, and the rest of the arena is also about 75-80% full for a typical game - those empty seats are just spread out more evenly. I don't see how its apples and oranges.
There would be MORE of an incentive to come to the game if you're a student and you know you'll be in the lower bowl.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:39 PM ^
The answer is not always.
This is what kills me: students are called out for not attending football games, which is completely ridiculous, especially if you buy tickets. Then their response is something like, "We don't want to go to games with an average on the field product, which again is completely ridiculous and just says they are bandwagon fans. Well, Michigan basketball is WINNING and has a great team, but sometimes the student section still isn't full, which AGAIN is just ridiculous. I would do a lot of things for student tickets.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:50 PM ^
Really? I'm just wondering what games you're talking about because I've been to every game this year with the exception of Nebraska, and ignoring the exhibition/break games, the lower sections have been filled by tip-off in every game. The upper bowl section can vary, but remember, just because there are empty seats doesn't mean there are students not showing up, because many students may have chose not to claim a ticket that game.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:49 AM ^
I would love for the student section to be at both sides of the baskets along with the length of the court.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^
My apologies to the Maize Rage, but who cares about the atmosphere an hour before tip-off? Crisler was as loud as I've ever heard it during the game. The place only seats 14,000 or so as it is, and over 3,000 were students on Sunday. The students were there early because they had to line up & get in early to get their seats.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
An hour before gametime is not important but even Ace said the crowd was not ready for tipoff. The crowd should be getting revved up at least 10 min before the game so they can hit the ground running at tipoff.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:01 PM ^
Or more activities to get the students excited an hour before tip? I feel like if there were 15,000 students there, they would still get bored an hour before tipoff. Making the atmoshpere more exciting (not showing ads) will get the crowd much louder and ready before tip.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:51 AM ^
Back in my day (when we walked barefoot, both ways), the student section rose all the way to the rafters...and was packed. Of course, that was the Fab5 era, but it was pretty boisterous.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 11:57 AM ^
or just small talk
Following the win in East Lansing, Brandon turned to a Michigan State athletic official and said, “I’m jealous” of the “incredible” atmosphere he witnessed
Because if it is I feel that Dave just does not understand how places get atmospheres like that. He says he wants to enhance the experience or whatever but follows that up by not caring about students, blasting ads and rawk music, and basically treating it like it's a business (or like Domino's as Rosenbaum so aptly pointed out).
Yost became a tour de force because it was an untouched hole in the wall that enabled creativity to bloom and noise to generate itself. We stole the cheers from Cornell in the early 90's and everything developed from there. Students were free to build upon ideas and take ownership and it became one of the most legendary student sections in college sports (winning helped too but the basketball team is certainly in a similar place to where the hockey team was mid-90's now)
The way that Michigan Stadium, Crisler, and Yost are currently being managed is not encouraging development of student sections or better atmospheres. No matter what Dave Brandon says, it's apparent that his main goal is always to make more money
February 26th, 2014 at 12:16 PM ^
of all responsibility, and predictably places all the blame on the notorious D.A.B. Prepare for many hollow upvotes.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:22 PM ^
I'd love to hear about how students bear any responsibility for a relative lack of good seating at basketball games.
Lavish me with tales of how all Dave wants to do is make money for our marvelous University, and is that so bad?!? Who cares that the vast majority of good basketball programs have significantly more courtside student seating - we need those extra dollars from the VIP seats that are half filled for non-premium games. Our massive athletic budget surplus just isn't enough!
We need extra cash to ensure the future of Beyonce halftime endorsements and skywriting over East Lansing.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:51 PM ^
besides copy & paste from your last post on anything related to the AD, you'd see that I'm not talking about money, and not blaming students for their seating. The hockey chant creativity is something that was student-generated: I'm certain that no AD had anything to do with that. There is absolutely nothing (besides the obnoxious blaring music at FB games) preventing students from creative chants. If you argue that they're too spread out, fine, how about the ones who are closer together come up with something? Anything. They have not been paralyzed by Brandon's dollar-printing capitalist ray gun.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
What responsibility you were trying to claim he absolved students of was in no way clear from that post, so I assumed it was the major theme of seating as opposed to chants.
But I don't think anyone, including that guy, is claiming Dave Brandon is preventing kids from coming up with creative stuff. Blame the maize raige organization for that one, since they meet weekly about these things.
I guess it would be nice if there was more creativity, but I also don't care much. Chants are fun, but noise is what can actually make a difference in the game, and to increase that there needs to be better seating, commensurate with other good basketball programs nationwide.
I repeat my sentiments on the AD because we really do have people on this board who view the issue in black and white "we need moar cash for our university!!!!!!!" terms, when half of what Dave spends the money on indicates that he's just trying to find ways to burn it.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
"we really do have people on this board who view the issue in black and white"
Do you really believe that you are not one of these people, just on the opposite side of the mirror?
Crisler was loud as balls Sunday, it looked like a blast. The AD (not Brandon, but the ADept before and including Brandon) has done an amazing job in updating what was once an embarassing facility. Beilein and the players have brought winning back. Things are pretty great. If you think students should have more prime seating, fine. But no where in this equation is OUTRAGE MONEY MONEY called for.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
but not sure what more the students can do here. You can say things like "kids and their instagrams these days!" but I feel part of the AD's job is to facilitate growth and the AD's current method seems to be by corporatizing sporting events or making them more like pro-events, rather than creating an environment that facilitates 'organic' growth.
I think the changes to Crisler have been generally great for the program, but I do strongly feel that the athletic department staff believes they serve the dollar and not the fan or team
February 26th, 2014 at 12:59 PM ^
how much of a stretch this is. You're criticizing Brandon for the student's lack of creativity (which you, not I, are noting)? Do you really believe the AD at the time of the hockey chant creation was sitting in his office, thinking to himself... "hmm... I need to foster an art spirit in my hockey crowd, I think I'll do that by creating a crappy/dungy environment and watch their spirit soar." Seriously, step back for a moment... doesn't that sound a little ludicrous?
Your personal views seem to be clouding your judgment, which your quick return to "corporatism! evil dollar!" betray. What's more, you take away praise from the people who really deserve it - whoever the group of students were that first created and then continued the great environment at Yost. That's never coming to BB or FB because of an AD (though yes, the AD needs to cut the blaring music the hell out at FB games). That will only come with another great round of student leaders, hilarious and clever, passionate enough about their sport to put it in place.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^
Would really like to see the student section behind each basket and along the stretch where they currently are, I think that would suffice.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:29 PM ^
Do I need to remind you this is COLLEGE BASKETBALL? Students are an annoying necessity that damage the revenue stream. The less of them the better.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^
You mean the students that don't show up for most of the non-premium games? Wasn't that a problem just a year ago? Or at least alleged to be? How would expanding the student section solve that. And has there ever been an issue in the last few years of not being able to get student tickets (quite a change from my freshman year in '95 when we got half season ticket in the last row of the upper deck).
I do think they should be moved down and behind the backboards, not sure when alumni would want those seats anyway - they are terrible.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:52 PM ^
"You mean the students that don't show up for most of the non-premium games?"
First off, attendance has been sweet this year, for almost all non-cupcake games (it's not like every seat was filled for the non-students for Creampuff State either).
Second off, you can make the size of the student section vary. We have to "claim" our tickets now anyways. You can only claim and no-show so many times before you can't get tickets anymore. Anyway, on a game where less students claim their ticket, they can open up the leftover seats to the general public.
We get the student section size that they can fill for the game, and Brandon gets to fill the leftover seats with others. In theory, very few empty seats.
February 26th, 2014 at 4:26 PM ^
I've been to 6 games--good ones and let's call the others December games. The students are there well before the overwhelming majority of the season ticket-holders/rest of the seats. Five minutes before tip-off for Coppin State the lower bowl was no more than 20% filled--save for the student sections. I love how more is expected out of the students than everyone else--as if they have to earn their right to tickets.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:30 PM ^
The lower bowl needs to be much bigger. Student's need to be together on the court. It increases atmosphere and some of those kids will be future donors.
There is an effing reason that Duke and Kansas are known as racously loud, intimidating road venues. Kids together, so close that they can literally reach out and touch people.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^
That's not to say that our student section at Crisler can't get more raucous, and I hope it does. But that's one of the reasons why it's not on a Duke or Kansas level.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:00 PM ^
I'm curious as to what your definition of 'sustainable success' is?
Michigan has had a pretty successful basketball program dating all the way back to the 60's. Arguably the longest stretch of futility for the program since the 1960's was the Ellerbe/Amaker era. If you include the Fab 5 era, they rank in the Top 10 in most FF appearances and are tied for 6th with the most appearances in the title game.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
Duke, of all places, is expereincing a decline in student attendance at games over the past few years. There have been many reasons thrown about as to why. Many of them have been hashed, and rehashed on this blog when discussing the broader student attendance issues.
In reading up about this, the one thing I found interesting is that some (I don't know what percentage) current students don't feel as if the Cameron environment is what it once was. I.e. the experience (regardless of what's taking place on the court) has changed. It used to be very organic. Now it is managed. There are cheer sheets and a specific order cheers should be done. They don't like that. The funny thing is, this was not driven by the athletic department. It was developed by a group of students who thought it would be a good idea to standardize what had been so randomnly great in the efforts to make it repeatedly great.
The AD department is not always the source of all evil. Their job is to make sure the athletic department is successful and financially solvent. I don't think anyone at Michigan would be happy if the athletic department was in the financial situation Purdue or Colorado is in.
That said, the students and the atheltic department need to work together to balance out "running a good business" and providing a "great student expereince". That is not simply the students saying this is what we want and getting it. It is also not punitive measures because all of your students section is not filled.