Season Ticket Holders Getting Screwed
I know this subject has been brought up a ton in past years and even more this year with the lame home slate and low ticket sales, so immediate apologies. Supposedly the Athletic Office has employees using "modern" methods of determining the pulse of its loyal followers so maybe they read MGoBlog?
With tickets once again going for around $24 on Stubhub and the Athletic Department offering faculty tickets, hotdog, pop, tee shirts, etc. for $42 a ticket, I once again feel like a fool paying about $65 a ticket AND a seat donation to keep my season tickets. This on top of paying (I mean donating) $2000 to get 4 seats switched into my name a few years ago. Couldn't they roll out some free hot dogs, a pop, a program, or an M-Den gift card to show their appreciation? What is the upside to having season tickets anymore besides the personal pride? It is no longer a distinction that put you ahead of the mile long waitlist, that has been eroded away.
Luckily for them, I live in AA and have significant time, money, and some emotion left wrapped up in Michigan sports, but kids come along, priorities shift, and there may come a time when... And I consider myself a positive fan and as diehard as they come. Maybe someone in the athletic department reads this and if it is news to them, they are sorely out of touch with the reality of the situation.
Happy Friday and see you all tomorrow. For those of you without season tickets, enjoy your free hot dog! Go Blue!
September 19th, 2014 at 6:15 PM ^
There are Apple fanboys every bit as dedicated as anyone here is to Michigan football. It'd be nice if the AD sugar coated the fact that it's a business transaction a little more than they do, but fundamentally it absolutely is a transaction between a business and a consumer, and for a luxury item at that.
September 19th, 2014 at 7:40 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
People have a misconception that non profit means that an organization is a charity or eschews money. It doesn't. Many non profits very aggressively seek revenue. The money they make pays for facilities, non revenue sports, and part of it is returned to the University general fund. Whether you think a state higher education institution should engage in such activities is a legitimate question, but it is a separate issue entirely from the AD setting ticket prices as high as the market allow.
September 19th, 2014 at 10:25 PM ^
Our taxes do not subsidize Michigan athletics.
September 19th, 2014 at 11:23 PM ^
reshp1, aren't you one of the guys complaining that you think some people are rooting for the attendance to drop under 100,000 to make Brandon look bad?
I don't know all these posters' histories, but if you're bashing the OP and saying it's simply a business, then you don't seem to care much about tradition and pride in Michigan football. What if I went to root for State because the product is better and cheaper, or the schedule is more interesting that year? I could say it's just a business decision, it's just ECON101 as one poster said. I'll come back to Michigan when the quality of the product is in line with the cost again, but you'd all rightfully call me a traitor.
September 21st, 2014 at 12:53 PM ^
I'm just sick of people thinking they're entitled to be treated a certain way just because of how dedicated of fans they are. Just because you've been cheering for Michigan since you were a wee lad doesn't mean you get to pick your ticket price, or that Hoke needs to personally tell you injury statuses, etc.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:06 PM ^
As a season ticket holder, you likely wouldn't have waited until week of to buy your single game tickets in the worst possible seats anyway. You really haven't lost anything from these steep discounts to try and sell-out the place by being a season ticket holder.
Complaining about the prices in the secondary market is a legitimate gripe. But you knew that would be the case when you bought this year's tickets and you have the benefit of priority for your seats for next year's much better slate. So I don't have a tremendous amount of sympathy. If the Athletic Department jacks up prices for next year's tickets because that set of games is much better than this year's, then I'll have sympathy for season ticket holders.
There's lots of things to complain about with this athletic department, but these reasonable discount deals aren't really one of them. These are much better tactics to sell the final tickets than things like the groupon offerred earlier this season.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:07 PM ^
Did you at least remember to wear a condom?
September 19th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
Did you at least insist the AD wear one?
September 19th, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
yeah my brain isn't working very well today. Apparently its on strike.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:07 PM ^
It will be worth it to have the MSU and OSU tickets next season. But this season it is not worth it.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
You chose to buy the tickets, so the reality is you screwed yourself.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
Even years are going to be an issue for the foreseeable future. Until UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma get here this complaint will continue as VA Tech and Arkansas don't move the needle. It's basically going to be PSU and a crossover like Nebraska and Wisconsin and a lot of filler games against very bad Big 10 teams in those years versus the odd years. Again winning fixes everything, but to your larger point I wrote about this in another post this week.
When the value of your product drops and you need to do these incentives to bring in the shoppers you will cause issues for your embedded customer base which is what you express. With the way the schedule is set up until we get to those high profile OOC games in the 2020s the value proposition is do I pay PSLs and the like over a 2 year cycle for OSU, MSU and Wisconsin or Nebraska (3 games) that would fetch a premium to offset the other 15 home games that are not that appealing.
Of course no one is putting a gun to your head and I dont think even if MSU or OSU tickets triple in value it will offset $2000 in PSL. So it is going to be an interesting question for season ticket holders - there is an economic question which is pretty straight forward but there is an emotional one which is not.
Also there are really 2 questions here - one is for current season ticket holders which will have a lot more emotional stake and hence the economics won't alter their behavior quite so much. The bigger issue for Dave is the second group - future potential season ticket buyers. They dont have that emotional stake group one has (much more difficult to give up season tickets you had for 20 years then think "nah I wont buy new season tickets") and if I see I can buy almost every game except 3-4 over a 16 game cycle (2 years) below face value PLUS get goodies thrown in from the AD if I buy direct OR no goodies but still below face on the open market, it would take a serious emotional reach to make the "bad" economic decision to purchase a new set of season tickets. And again, a winning product would help let more people make that "bad" economic decision. But a mediocre product ... and the decision is clear.
The longer this goes the more Dave will train the ticket buying public to just wait until the last minute even if they don't want to go to the secondary market - because that is when the incentives come This is the issue that was rampant in the auto market pre financial crisis - every buyer was trained not to buy a car until the big rebates came out. The more competition that came out the more rebates were given - people didnt expect $5000 rebates in 1989 when buying a car - in 2005 most people wouldnt sniff at a car until they saw that level rebate.
September 19th, 2014 at 7:51 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
You are getting a hot dog. Dave Brandons weiner as he bends you over the barrel. But seriously though you can get tickets with hotdogs and tshirts on Groupon for $40.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
My wife received an email today as an M-Den customer offering her tickets to the next two home games (Utah and Minnesota) for $40 per ticket. She's a Northwestern alum and just used her email to order me some t-shirts online. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to unload tickets it seems.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:28 PM ^
of the barrel. Scraping the bottom of the barrel would be using the professional scalpers outside the stadium to unload a bunch of tickets. OR, worse, having BS on the Huge Show giving away tickets to the next 1,000 callers.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:14 PM ^
No one is forcing you to buy the tickets, but I do understand.
I don't think we should have to pay over $50 for a ticket. Brandon says otherwise.
Oh well though. If I want to go to a game I will pay. It sucks, but there is only so much we can do.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:15 PM ^
but I'm going to be one anyways. Unless you feel obligated in some way to go above and beyond in supporting the athletic department, you are dumb to buy season tickets to watch this lazy team play this shitty schedule.
Tickets are available through multiple outlets for far less money. By purchacing season tickets you are just telling the AD that it is ok to butt pound their fans.
I still think you should support your team, just be financially responsible while doing it. Your $2000 "donation" is a joke.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:20 PM ^
Bando is going to crush you.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:22 PM ^
He called us "dumb".
September 19th, 2014 at 2:29 PM ^
I'm not pleased, no.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
He doesn't care about the fans even a little bit. We are all numbers on a graph who pay his salary. Nothing more. He will get his enormous paycheck until he is forced out. But who cares? He already got his millions. And we were the suckers.
September 19th, 2014 at 4:07 PM ^
BRANDO?
Because that is awesome.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:24 PM ^
They should do something for the ticket holders though. Back when I was in the Maize Rage, they pretty much paid me to attend through incentives during the 08-09 season. We were expected to suck, but it was the best sporting experience of my life.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:43 PM ^
I guess I shouldn't have said lazy. Slow is more like it.
September 19th, 2014 at 3:09 PM ^
Then maybe don't type stuff like "watch this lazy team play this shitty schedule". The home schedule is bad, but it's absurd to label Michigan as "this lazy team".
My hunch is that you like to be a dick.
September 19th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
Amen man Amen
September 19th, 2014 at 2:25 PM ^
are never going to be the cheapest way to get tickets unless you're following a team with an insane fanbase.
As a season ticket holder, I'm happy to see them do everything they can to fill the empty seats.
September 19th, 2014 at 7:58 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 9:08 PM ^
I will buy season tickets again if I get a B1G championship ring.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
Yes, and the sky is blue.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:38 PM ^
if this is how you feel, you should be telling that to the AD. Of course, your email won't all of a sudden make Brandon see the light. However, the AD obviously knows there are a lot of people who aren't as interested in UM football as they used to be. The more emails they receive from disgruntled current season ticket holders, maybe they will start looking at ways to retain those season ticket holders.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
The AD has been getting this stuff for four years. People call, and they're pushed off to some marketing flunky who doesn't want to hear it. They email, they get pithy responses. They go to the Athletic offices, and get brushed off. They fill out the surveys sent to ticketholders at the end of the season, and by the next season, it's as if no one read any of them.
The thing is, this Athletic Department is going to do what they're going to do. They're going to tell you change is good, that something needed fixing, that this is the way things are, and then they're going to ask for a donation and hang it over your head so you have no choice but to do it. And then you wonder what exactly it was about Michigan Athletics you loved, and where it went.
Big donors don't like Dave Brandon. Small donors don't like Dave Brandon. Faculty members and academic units at the University don't like Dave Brandon. There seems to be a consistent theme here. But nothing is going to change--these guys are convinced this scorched-earth, marketing-based approach is the way to go. And, unfortunately, there's no one left from the way it was before (because they fired or force-retired them all) to fix it once DB is gone. We're stuck with this mess.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^
The general fan base for Wolverine football definitely is not happy with how things have run under Dave Brandon. Some of that is his doing and some of that can only be indirectly attributed to him. Consider if he came in and inherited a winning football team under Rich Rodriguez he would probably be doing a lot of the things he is doing now. Some of things he would of course change - he probably wouldn't be holding fire sales on tickets and promotions and he might have have actually let relationship with the students get worse because there would still be a waiting list and he could repackage unused student seats and resell those at full price.
The Big Donors haven't been put off by him because they are largely attracted not by something he has done or hasn't done with the team, but because they had a great time in Ann Arbor DECADES ago when they were young and had the future ahead of them - one full of promise that has paid off. All the development people have to do is NOT screw up this impression. A huge scandal on campus could kill a big donation but unless the donor is absolutely fanatical about football, the ups and downs of the football team won't affect them.
I get it that for a lot of fans it is more about the game on the field and so they can enjoy just as much at home and don't need to be there but there are also many for whom the tradition and dare I say ritual of going to the game, singing the national anthem, watching the team run under the banner and singing the Victors is an important part of the enjoyment. I'm not a big donor and the prospects are dim that I will ever be one but when I go to the games, I recall moments in the stands when greats like Anthony Carter, RIck Leach and Dennis Franklin played. As we oldtimers age out and get set on an ice floe, this will change, but I hope I'm around long enough to hear people reminisce about how fast Denard Robinson was and how they were all there at the UTL1.
To be fair, Dave Brandon has his supporters since coming to town. His efforts to get a 8th home game on some years, and extra "games" (e.g. hockey and soccer matches) generate a huge amount of revenue for the hotel, restaurant and bar owners - in some cases the revenues from one of those weekends is equivalent to a month's take during the slowest month of the year (usually February) so to a lot of them, Dave Brandon is a a positive and not a negative to the sporting situation.
Yes, I agree that this season of games is a poor one and the AD would have been smarter to roll back the prices by even a token small amount (e.g. from $75 a ticket to $65) to acknowledge the reality, but he is hoping and gambling that things will turn around. Is he worried? Yes, there wouldn't be an air armada over the stadium on Saturday and all of the bells and whistles if we had one of those "boring 9-3 teams" of the past. With the way the schedule is we'll have feast years (OSU and MSU here) and famine years so we might as get used to it.
At this point, Go Blue, hope all of the players stay healthy, that the Wolverines win and things turn around.
September 19th, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
Big donors also have other motivations for donating, ie. tax breaks and getting a plaque or a building or a coaching position named after them.
September 19th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^
The booster clubs don't like Dave Brandon...well the ones that used to exist (the Dekers are the last of the Michigan booster clubs...). I know form my interactions with dollar bill brandon, he doesn't give one iota what you think unless you have the funds to build a new training center. Dave will do what Dave wants to do. There is a reason the AD has high turnover in its staff. They exist to serve to Dave. They either quit when they realize this or they are pushed if they don't toe the line with Dave and his cronies at IMG.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
of the power and speed craze for computers 20 years ago. At the time, if you're old enough to remember, top shelf home computers were going for $5,000 and more when first introduced. Wait just three months and the price was a quarter of that. Wait another three months and they were being shipped back to the manufacturer because they were obsolete. Still, the same people would continue to buy computers at jacked up prices just so they could have the latest and greatest, prices be damned. Finally, one day, the spend thrifts came to their senses and stopped over paying for a crappy product and prices plummeted across the board. Maybe one day season ticket holders of crappy Michigan football will come to their senses as well.
September 19th, 2014 at 8:20 PM ^
Top shelf computers still cost like $5000 these days. They just do a lot more.
September 19th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
it's over, so don't bitch - it was your choice all along. I am a season ticket holder ( and just added 2 more tickets this year). Personally, I much prefer to watch Michigan in person, than EVER on TV. Game day ... is a whole day. Driving up, tailgating (pre & post) ... just enjoying the entire atmosphere. Watching a game on TV is simply 3-4 hours and you're done. It's entertainment ... and yeah it costs $$$, but that was my choice - yeah I would appreciate a little something to recognize "loyalty" ... but having a great football team again would be plenty for me.
Go Blue!
September 19th, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 3:10 PM ^
at most institutions, I do have two Latin words for you, Caveat emptor.
September 19th, 2014 at 7:11 PM ^
Attendance at all major college football games is in a decline. Students in particular are opting out. Easier, cheaper and more comfortable to watch the game either at home or in a friendly bar.
I have attended my share of Michigan football games and though enjoyable they are not nearly as enjoyable as from my living room where I can hollor, scream, cuss and injest a drink immediately to sooth my sorrows.
September 19th, 2014 at 9:15 PM ^
I do the same thing for $10 a pop and I have been sitting near my former season ticket seats (one row over) all season through the secondary market.
Go Blue!
September 19th, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^
Season tickets don't make economic sense UNLESS you want to support the program.
You can get priority access to OSU and MSU tickets for next year by paying $40 per to see Utah or Minnesota. And fake Dhani Jones sends you email.
It's kind of great. There are now options for big spenders and the middle class. Don't be a hater.
September 19th, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
September 19th, 2014 at 4:52 PM ^
Same reason cable, and cell phone companies give out awesome deals to new members. Once they have you they don't give a shit, on to the next one.
I always hate seeing the promotions on TV for new service with AT&T, then I call and say I have been a customer for 5 years, never been late with a payment... why am I not getting these great deals?