Glimpse from your future: PSU attendance down due to mandatory donations

way of the future.... way of the future.... way of the future

Are worth less victors points than those this year so really your best bet for tix has always been to donate a ton in 1 year. If you really want tix put 1500-2000 aside over the next couple years then donate it all at once.

I was fortunate enough to bet that the depths of the RR era was as cheap donation wise as it ever would get and landed 4 using that approach

Long ago and far away, when I was young, the only games that ever sold out were MSU or Ohio.  A lot of games were played to a half-empty stadium.  It was actually pretty cool.   

Enter Don Canham.  Canham is given credit for creating a lot of what is now standard football marketing.  He was so successful that many mgobloggers have never lived in a time when a Michigan game wasn't officially a sellout, even with the fans who are masquerading as empty seats at the tops of the end zones.  

Due to the value of a University of Michigan degree, there are still enough rich alums that a lot of tickets will be sold, but I can see the average fan finally saying "enough is enough" someday.  

If Michigan prices itself out of the market, though, the people who will be really pissed are the scalpers.   Nothing neutralizes scalpers like reduced demand.  I hate to wish ill will on anyone in a personal sense, but nothing is more fun to watch on gameday than a desperate scalper with a couple thousand dollars' worth of tickets in his hand five minutes before kickoff.

...this seems like classic supply and demand.  the penn state athletic dept seems to think that people will pay whatever it takes, and the people are saying, "no, that's too much."  football is slightly different, of course - if penn state was undefeated and had an exciting team, it probably wouldn't matter.  

but i can see making the calculation in my head and deciding that one or two games a year is ok, when every game is televised and my hd tv looks like a million dollars.  i've done it myself - i know i complain about this every time it comes up, but i'm not going to pay seventy bucks (or $170, or whatever it is going to take next season) to watch eastern michigan again (or delaware state, or ball state, or akron, etc.)

plus, there's very little chance of me hearing pop evil or seeing some goddamned mascot when i'm in my living room.

Brandon is asking for the same problem with this kind of minimum donations just to have the honor of asking for seats. It's bad enough he raised ticket prices. As a young alum not yet making the big bucks, I don't have season tickets, but I've bought tickets to at least two or three individual games every year since graduation. But this ticket-gouging makes me more and more inclined to simply take the money I'd spend on tickets and buy a new televison to watch the game on instead. [I thought about doing so this year, but ultimately decided I care more about being there for Hoke's inaugural season than I care about my principles as a consumer.] Call it supply and demand--I don't ever want to see Michigan lose its 100K+ attendance streak record, but I won't be tanken advantage of, either.