With Premium Seating Not Sold Out, What Is The Real Capacity of the Stadium?
EDIT: The question I (obviously) meant to ask was MAXIMUM attendance (including non ticket holders). The record was 112,118 with an official capacity of 107,501. Thus, there were 4,617 non ticket holders that day. Assuming there is more room now for non ticket holders, I bumped that to 5,600 for a theoretical maximum attendance of 115,501. If there are unsold premium or other seats this number would be reduced unless the seats are somehow filled.
As of 14 July 2010,
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5379144
"Twenty of the 81 suites are available and about 80 percent of the 2,952 club seats haven't been sold yet."
I thought I had heard a larger number sold. If my math is correct, that is (20 x 16 = 320 plus .8 x 2952 = 2162 === ) 2,482 seats.
Does that mean maximum crowd size will be reduced by about 2,500?
Are these available for individual games? If so, is the cost and "donation" requirement 1/8 of the season ticket cost? Even so, that might upset the folks that bought them and had to come up with lots of money up front.
Or will they remain empty for all the games?
August 30th, 2010 at 10:50 PM ^
We will still have the highest attendance which is all I care about.
August 31st, 2010 at 7:05 AM ^
Some victories would be nice...
August 30th, 2010 at 10:51 PM ^
I bet the athletic department will fill all those seats with guest, profs, recruits, etc.
August 30th, 2010 at 10:58 PM ^
Those seats are NOT going empty most of the time.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:20 PM ^
In Fact, I know for sure that the University is letting some employee groups use the unsold suites for the UConn game.
I'd imagine that practice will continue throughout the season. Anniversary teams, kids from Mott, etc.
August 31st, 2010 at 7:28 AM ^
I have a co-worker who is going to be attending the game in a suite on Saturday as part of a campus-wide group he works with (Voices of the Staff). He won a monthly(?) drawing for those that regularly attend their meetings.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:03 PM ^
August 30th, 2010 at 11:04 PM ^
The seats will be filled, in some manner. They will make sure of it. Perhaps some Dominoe's employees would like to attend.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:07 PM ^
percentage of club seats were sold back in July.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:15 PM ^
the capacity of 109,901 will never be the announced attendance anyway.
My guess is that the minimum announced attendance this year will be 112,000 which counts "extras" at the game that may not be sitting in actual numbered seats....club, suite, or otherwise.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:20 PM ^
Not related to filling the premium unsold seats, but:
Took a look at Stub Hub. Looks like about 120 seats available. A few in the premium seating. Looks like $300-$500 for premium tickets.
These are folks reselling their tickets -- really? How could you miss this game if you have tickets? How can you not have friends for any extra tickets?
August 31st, 2010 at 1:47 AM ^
A lot of those folks have multiple sets of tickets. People were encouraged to keep their old seats, too, and many/most did. So it's not surprising to see some of those tickets show up on StubHub. And, honestly, having been in this boat before with our family's season tickets, it's not as easy to unload extra tickets as you sometimes would hope. Especially on a holiday weekend. I know that sounds crazy to us as people who would do anything for a Michigan ticket...
August 30th, 2010 at 11:36 PM ^
I believe they will all be filled in one manner or another. Definitely a great recruiting sell to get some talented young men up there to see the game from a different view point.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:45 PM ^
You have the club number wrong. 80% have been sold. They have it backwards. Source: Going on the tour, seeing them at the spring game, sitting in them at the scrimmage and hearing their talk.
August 31st, 2010 at 12:05 AM ^
That is what I thought too. So, to recalculate using the club seats at 20% that would be about 900 unsold seats.
August 31st, 2010 at 12:02 AM ^
Agreed, I would think they'd give them to boosters and/or affiliates who support the program.
But after saying that, I would really like to see them donate the seats to a program like Big Brother / Big Sister. Not only would it give a child a once-in-a-lifetime experience (and make him a UofM fan for life), but just think of the PR this would have.
August 31st, 2010 at 1:43 AM ^
The big untold number is how many of those Club Seats and Suites have been "reserved" and subsequently fully paid for. While there may be 20% of the Club available, that doesn't mean that everyone in the remaining 80% has followed through on their deposit. Theoretically the seats are still theirs, but they may have no intention of paying the final donations. There's some credible rumors floating around that while commitments were quick to come in on a lot of seats, with the economy, and most of those people keeping their lower-bowl seats anyway, there's more than a few commitments that have yet to be followed through on, and there's a bit of panic involved.
As for the suite availability numbers, there's been a large amount of migration from the suite level down to the Club Seats after the initial commitment. Let's face it, the view from the suites are a bit on the stratospheric side, and I think anyone who looked at both the suites and the club level within 5 minutes of each other would pick the club seats any day of the week.
And if we want to see what it looks like when people don't sit in their premium seating, look at the deck at Yost on any given Friday or Saturday night. Those tickets have been sold out for years, but I don't think I've ever seen a game (no matter how big) where they've been even 90% full. It's kind of lame to say the least. Either the people are sitting in their other season ticket locations (with an almost certain better view), or they just like throwing money at the AD.
It's a total no-brainer, though, that those seats will be full on Saturday. There's no way the AD leaves glaring holes open if they can help it. The TV cameras will without doubt be panning often on all the fancy new seats.
August 31st, 2010 at 1:45 AM ^
dave brandon spoke to the MMB tonight and said that there would be 111,000 people in the stadium come saturday, FWIW
August 31st, 2010 at 1:45 AM ^
dave brandon spoke to the MMB tonight and said that there would be 111,000 people in the stadium come saturday, FWIW
August 31st, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
A post so nice, he said it twice.
August 31st, 2010 at 1:49 AM ^
August 31st, 2010 at 7:03 AM ^
It's somewhat disappointing that it took so many comments before someone pointed this out.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:01 AM ^
You are right. However, what I was getting at is the maximum capacity not the "official capacity".
August 31st, 2010 at 10:01 AM ^
The capacity's the same because those seats exists and can be sold. It's maximum possible attendance if those seats were to be unused. As others have said, they'll still be used and attendance will be even higher than capacity anyway.
August 31st, 2010 at 10:07 AM ^
I knew I shouldn't have slept so much in those english classes!
I should have asked for maximum attendance.
Record attendance = 112, 118
Official Capacity = 107, 501
Difference = 4,617
Current Official Capacity = 109,901
Should be more space for non ticket holders with the new press box and premium seating so let's say a potential 5,600 non-ticket holders
109,901 + 5,600 = 115,501
August 31st, 2010 at 1:50 PM ^
Vocabulary =/= grammar.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:32 AM ^
The Victors Club put out an offer a few days ago to all premium seat holders to purchase additional season tickets in the premium seating areas at just the cost of the tickets (no PSD required).
August 31st, 2010 at 9:10 AM ^
I looked at the game by game attendance last year. The stated attendance at the Delaware State game was 106,304.
I think the "official" capacity of the stadium may have been reduced from 107,501 because of the modifications made for wheelchair accessible seating even though it was never official (that I know of).
With all that said, there were obviously several thousand unsold tickets that day (I believe that attendance counts all sold tickets [regardless if the person attends or not] plus the visiting band, visiting players, coaches, all folks in the pressbox, etc.
Was this a result of some seats not being sold as season tickets because of the renovations or were there season tickets available that were never sold?
August 31st, 2010 at 9:53 AM ^
The Athletic Department has been quietly not selling some tickets as season tickets for a couple years now to prepare for the seat and aisle widening. These were all season tickets that weren't renewed. We had one in our section, one seat in the row in front of us that was a game-by-game ticket that had never been that before. That's also where a lot of those "All-In" packages came from. For Delaware State, they were requiring the purchase of a DSU ticket with a ticket for several other home games, and even at that, there were still tickets to spare. 106k was probably a generous number for how many people were likely there.
There were also seats lost for the renovation areas at the top of the bowl, and a lot of seats lost with the additional areas of handicapped seating required to be added as a result of that lawsuit. They were not selling 107,501 tickets last season.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:52 AM ^
Not too sure if this has been said yet or not, but premium ticket holders received letters from the AD saying that the extra seats are available for sale on individual games, but only to those that have already purchased suites, and the premium seats. I suspect as others have said we'll see some groups use the seats - they will not go unused.