Spring Game Attendance totals
99,391 is very impressive. Our number is impressive just because of the timing and weather of the event. It makes sense that the national champions get that many.
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I'm not sure we'd get that number after a nationaL championship. They are crazy. It's impressive.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
I went to the spring game in 98 when we WERE coming off a national championship and it wasn't even close to what we got a couple weeks ago.
April 20th, 2015 at 11:59 AM ^
there were some ongoing construction projects inside Michigan Stadium in 1998 that probably caused a few thousand to stay away.
April 20th, 2015 at 12:07 PM ^
I don't think that was a factor. All they did was add some rows (and the infamous "halo") and new scoreboards. Obviously, none of that was going on during the game.
The spring game was just never a big deal under Carr.
Correct. It was just a couple rows added to the top of the stadium. I don't think the construction had even started yet. And even once they put in the new scoreboards, they didn't use them for the spring games in 99 and 2000. They always wheeled a portable scoreboard and placed it in the south end zone...half the time, the thing never worked.
It was also nice in those days to go on the field afterwards to get the players autographs. But they stopped allowing that around 2004ish. And then they started not keeping score...by then, I was too bored with the spring game to keep going to it during the Carr years.
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Oh yes - going on the field at the end of the spring game was very cool. I wish they'd still allow that.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:58 AM ^
To try to get 50k
We're talking more people than Cleveland and Cincinatti combined. So they already have a built-in advantage of almost 800,000 people within the city limits. Makes it a bit easier to pack the stadium.
It's the largest city proper, but the Cleveland and Cincy metro areas are larger.
You have to keep in mind that the dynamics in Ohio are very different. There is one major college football program without other major sports (successful ones) in central Ohio. Tickets to regular season games are impossible to get except by secondary market, and are very expensive at that point. Every game is this way, even against the soup cans they schedule every year. I talk to a lot of folks who take their kids to this game because they can't afford to take them to a regular season game. This will be even more exaggerated after a national championship (an undisputed one). No question, the number is impressive, but there are good reasons for it.
"an undisputed one"
Unlike OSU, Michigan didn't lose A game in 1997. They did all they had to do.
That was supposed to be a sarcastic "undisputed one". I think it's amazing that adding 2 teams to the playoffs make a championship undisputed, especially when the 4 seed wins it. So, relax. We good.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:00 AM ^
Sorry.....I just get defensive.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
and considering OSU magically jumped two teams ranked higher to get in the playoff when said two teams did not lose their final game. Undisputed? Maybe...
April 20th, 2015 at 10:40 AM ^
I've suggested to a few buckeye friends, that, if the two Big 12 teams had been Oklahoma and Texas instead of Baylor and TCU, I doubt OSU would have jumped both to get in. There was no question that Alabama v. OSU, Saban v. Meyer, was a better storyline and more attractive to sponsors than Alabama v. Bayor or TCU. Unfortunately, it will always be this way. Fortunately, Michigan is a big brand too, and Harbaugh's a big figure in coaching.
April 20th, 2015 at 11:19 AM ^
I think if you replace OSU with Michigan, Nebraksa and maybe PSU the same thing happens. But I do think we or any other B1G team would have been headed somewhere else on January 1st if it was UT and OU. Plus I think if it was them, the Big XII would have stuck to their guns about who their champ was.
Other than a hockey team, there is nothing else in the Columbus area except OSU. Ann Arbor's proximity to Detroit, IMO, with professional franchises in every major sport tends to dilute the fan market, to say nothing about MSU, which has a substantial fan base not far down the road.
Having a spring game in early April is a huge problem with A2 weather being generally less than conducive to sitting around watching a controlled scrimmage.
I'd say it has more to do with being in a metropolitan area of around 2 million people + 75 degree weather than anything else.
April 20th, 2015 at 11:00 AM ^
has a lot more people than that. More than double IIRC.
There's just nothing else to do in Columbus. I mean, you can only fuck your cousin so many times in a day.
Clearly the only reason every team that gets more people than us it because they're in a state with nothing to do.
I've been to,Columbus and it's actually pretty cool and plenty to do. I'm sure it's the same with Omaha (biggest city in Nebraska, not Lincoln but they're somewhat close). State College I'm not so sure about. But the nothing else to do thing is a cop out.
reading someone defend the godforsaken hellhole known as Columbus, on a Michigan sports blog of all places?
WTF is wrong with you?
And since you mentioned Nebrasksa, if the same % of Michigan's population attended Michigan games as the % of Nebraska's population attends Nebraska games, Michigan Stadium would need to seat over 435,000 people.
Also, lighten up Francis.
April 20th, 2015 at 12:17 PM ^
Weather was outstanding for our spring game. ??
College football is the greatest sport of all ... and these figures show that fan enthusiasm knows no season. I can't wait for the fall!
park 99,000+ semi trucks?
April 20th, 2015 at 10:49 AM ^
There are also 22 McDonalds in greater Columbus.
That number seems kind of inflated to me for OSU. There were a ton of empty seats during that game.
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April 20th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
They counted all the free tickets sold.
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April 20th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ^
I thought the same thing when I tuned in during the fourth quarter just to check how much longer was left (I was waiting for a friend to come to my house, but he wanted to watch the spring game first). I thought there was no way that is close to 100,000 people, but it was in the fourth quarter at that point. So, obviously people left.
I turned it on at the beginning of the fourth quarter, so that could be why.
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60,001.
Lowest during the Saban era. And, like you guys, I believe admission is free. I guess there was a threat of rain.
We were fortunate we had wonderful weather this year.
Michigan got 25,000 in for the 1998 spring game after winning a national championship and the weather was great. This was a year after having 4,000 for the 1997 spring game.
Point being: No one should put any stock, recruits or not, in spring game attendance.
The spring game is a bigger deal now. 60000 is a nice step forward for us, but as usual OSU is reminding us how far we have to go.
Who the fuck cares? Jesus, man. It's a spring game. Don't know if you live in Michigan, but April weather is unpredictable. We had a snow flurry last MAY.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:55 AM ^
"Who cares?" about a Michigan sporting event. . . At any rate, spring games are used as big recruiting days now, which make them important for sure.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
I didn't say who cares about the thing in general. No one should care about attendance at an intrasquad scrimmage is my point.
April 20th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^
that if Michigan and OSU swapped turnouts that you still wouldn't care.
April 20th, 2015 at 12:21 PM ^
It helps recruiting to have a ton of people in the stands. If PSU, Ohio, and Nebraska are all getting over 60k a year we need to have similar numbers.
Who the fuck cares? Jesus, man. It's a spring game.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:02 AM ^
If we beat OSU on the field, we could have 3 people show up to the spring game for all I care. OSU also had a lot of people show up to the spring game because
a) They just won a title 3 months ago
b) Its Ohio, the state has nothing else to cling on to in the way of sports. Every other team sucks, or completely wets the bed when it makes the playoffs.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:39 AM ^
I should clarify - the spring game is merely a sign of program strength, not much else. OSU is setting records and reeling in recruits. You're absolutely correct that their recent NC and their fanbase's fanaticism are the major factors; my point is that the difference in attendance is another reminder of how far ahead they are on the field. And people notice that (i.e. the media, recruits).
April 20th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^
That's because they do a shit job of promoting it. They still did a half assed job with it this year and look how many showed up.
FUCK OHIO STATE
not go, so this is not "calling out" anybody, but I truly thought we would have more than we did. It would seem that the extreme excitement over Harbaugh and the fact that it was an actual game would have gotten a few more people there. This is obviously still an impressive number but not on par with what I expected when we first got Harbaugh.
I think Bama basically sold out their spring game when they brought in Saban and they were coming off the same kind of "relevancy drought" that we are right now.
April 20th, 2015 at 10:05 AM ^
To be fair what else is there to do in Alabama?
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April 20th, 2015 at 10:06 AM ^
Poison trees...
April 20th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
fans at work told me that their bigger crowds for the spring game meant their fans were more passionate! I just told them there is nothing else to do in Lincoln!
April 20th, 2015 at 10:11 AM ^
The attendance is low relative to Bama and OSU because U of M is a much better school, therefore our alumni are from around the country and are unlikely to travel to Ann Arbor for a spring game. A huge portion of our season ticket holders are out of state alumni working in NY, DC, or LA. OSU is mostly in staters, and they have a monopoly over their state, this the higher attendance.