MGoHistory Help: Attendance 1969-1975

Submitted by twohooks on

I'm looking for some cool stories on why it took so long for Bo's squads to fill the house. With the 1969 win versus OSU being legendary status in M Football lore which begs the question unto why it took until 1976 to regularly fill the stadium. MSU and OSU were sell outs during this timeframe, while all of the rest of the games were close to 3/4 full. I'm sure Bacon and Falk have shared their viewpoints now I would like to hear from others.

(EDIT) Still not trying to make this a term paper although I understand that there was a steady rise in attendance. Television wasn't relevant as it is today. Was it the War? Watergate? Lou Grant was on Saturday afternoons?

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worric123

October 25th, 2015 at 9:28 AM ^

I remember having my parents get an extra ticket for me during these years and I would have space enough to sit between them. I learned to love football back then and Bimbo's pizza afterwards. I think people were intrigued by Bo and his team philosophy and the relationship with Woody who he deeply respected.

Joined: 05/29/2011

MGoPoints: 18

snarling wolverine

October 25th, 2015 at 12:21 AM ^

We simply didn't fill up the stadium regularly until then. In the pre-Bo era, my understanding is that we'd typically draw around 60,000 for home games, aside from OSU and MSU which would sell out. I don't know if we used to sell out in the '40s and then the mediocrity of the '50s/'60s took its toll, or if it was always like that. But at any rate, when Bo got here it seemed like we didn't have a large enough fan base to fill up the stadium. Bo (and Canham) changed that.

Joined: 12/14/2011

MGoPoints: 98265

M-Dog

October 25th, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^

"Wave 83".  Good name.

I was there for the first wave.  If you were too, do you remember the pep rallly the night before the game when the cheerleaders announced that they were going to try the wave in the stadium the next day?  They called it "Maize in Motion".  They had just come back from an away game at Washington where they saw the wave for the first time.

I am trying to remember where the pep rally was.  It was either on the Diag or on the lawn of the white Frat with the volleyball nets on State street near the Union.  I think it was the latter.

I remember going to two pep rallies that year, the "Maize in Motion" one, and the one before the '83 Ohio State game where Bo said to us "We have not beaten Ohio State in two years, it's time to fix that!"  

And he did.

 

Joined: 07/06/2008

MGoPoints: 257385

Year of Revenge II

October 25th, 2015 at 9:45 AM ^

It was a horribly boring beat down.  I was 16, and had been going to Michigan games for 10 years already.  More than any other game, and the loss to MSU weeks afterward, these two games set the tone for Bo, and for his team.  They came together as a team, as I bet you my bottom dollar this team is doing even more so since the MSU loss this year.

Utah and MSU were the fires from which the future steel of UM excellence will be forged.  Bo operated the mill.

I will never forget Missouri, for it kicked off a golden age.  

Utah/MSU the same.  I predict we see a road team on a mission this Saturday, and the Gophers will understand the true meaning of Halloween fright night.  

 

 

Joined: 11/12/2013

MGoPoints: 9188

uminks

October 25th, 2015 at 2:33 AM ^

won the NC in '48 and had several years where the team finished in the top 20. But after '56 season he started losing and I think Crisler forced him to retire and hired the Michigan man Bump that did not work out well. My Grandfather said the stadium was always filled when he went to games in the 40s, but he stopped going after 1960.

Joined: 11/10/2009

MGoPoints: 32040

BornSinner

October 25th, 2015 at 3:03 AM ^

Crazy how Bump Elliott is more of a legend at Iowa than he is here... even tho he bleeds Blue 24/7. 

Now that I think about it... Michigan grads pretty much filled up vacancies every where in the B10 back in those days... 

 

Joined: 09/20/2014

MGoPoints: 14672

Crisler 71

October 25th, 2015 at 5:15 PM ^

I was there before Bo and the stadium was always almost half empty.  Then Canham kicked in his marketing skills.  He sent out flyers to EVERYONE.  If you bought season tickets you got a Michigan coffee cup, amd evem when the first sellouts happened they were becaues Canham started band day.  THey used to get enough High School bands to fill the field, over 600 if I remember correctly.  Somewhere I have pictures and you can't see the field for the bandsmen.  Canham sold the idea that Michigan football was a FAMILY thing, not just a guy's thing, and the moms bought into it.  Canham knew that the wives determined where the family money went.  When the wives and families bought into tailgating, they also bought into the game.

Joined: 05/23/2011

MGoPoints: 964

Picktown GoBlue

October 25th, 2015 at 12:37 AM ^

to 50 cents per gallon so folks stayed home and went to the game.

Gerald Ford was President.  The Victors replaced Hail to the Chief.

Folks heard "Afternoon Delight" and thought that meant they should be in the Big House.

Just don't know.

Joined: 01/21/2011

MGoPoints: 6220

Bluebells and maize

October 25th, 2015 at 12:38 AM ^

Best guess, around that time portable radio technology changed and people didn't have to choose between being in the stadium and hearing the game called by Robert Frost Ufer.
Obviously I have no idea, but I did enjoy spending my bye week doing yard work and streaming Ufer's call of the 1978 M vs Wisconsin game. A game I'm not old enough to have actual memory of hearing (alive but very young), but still listened intently.

Joined: 08/17/2012

MGoPoints: 1255

Year of Revenge II

October 25th, 2015 at 12:55 AM ^

Less people everywhere going to college games compared to decades succeeding 60's and 70's. The awesomeness of attending college games had not yet been fully "discovered" by the masses.

Joined: 11/12/2013

MGoPoints: 9188

UMxWolverines

October 25th, 2015 at 1:07 AM ^

I would be more curious as to how big our stadium was vs the rest of the country at that time too though. The Rose Bowl held 100,000+ and more than Michigan Stadium at the time but it was onky going to get that for that one special game. I'm sure we were the only on campus stadium to seat 100,000. Ohio Stadium only held 80,000 at that time.

Joined: 03/01/2009

MGoPoints: 65366

dave954

October 25th, 2015 at 1:23 AM ^

As I recall, the football games were pretty much attended by the students and game attendance averaged about  95,000 which was near/at capacity.  They increased seating to about 101,000 after I graduated.  Student tickets were in such demand that a group of us from Markley camped out in shifts for an entire week to wait in line for our tickets (which cost $7 each).  For out-of-state students, the total annual costs (room and board, tuition, fees) was about $4200 a year.  A dollar was worth a dollar then.

Joined: 07/27/2010

MGoPoints: 31

Sparkle Motion

October 25th, 2015 at 1:42 AM ^

A lot of factors. The birth control pill, acid, pot, the Vietnam war, streaking... But I think the number one thing was pubic hair. There was just so much of it. Huge thicketsof the stuff. Would have every intention of going to a game and then find myself unable to escape, like a lion walking across a pit covered in leaves

Joined: 11/02/2010

MGoPoints: 2632

Don

October 25th, 2015 at 1:58 AM ^

If a program has been very successful for a decade or more, it will take more than one bad year for attendance to fall off significantly. If a program has been mediocre for a significant span, then it will take several years for capacity crowds to return on a regular basis.

For example, capacity crowds were the norm in 1949, after two straight national championships. As the Oosterbaan and then Elliott years followed, mediocrity set in and attendance declined significantly to the point where there was less than 50K in Bo's second game in '69 against Washington.

Canham was a master marketer, but he wouldn't have been able to fill the stadium at all if it weren't for Bo building a powerhouse program in short order.

All the game attendance figures are here, along with info about the stadium expansions:

http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/football/football.htm

Basically, people are the same everywhere: the only people who are willing to pay money to see a losing program are the diehards. If, God forbid, a certain former coach had been given a 10-year extension and we continued to bumble and stumble to 5-7 and 6-6 seasons, the stretches of empty seats would mean the athletic dept could no longer maintain the fiction that each game was in excess of 100K. That would be a bitter pill to have to acknowledge that publicly.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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