Upgrading Football Season Tix
As a corollary to the several board topics about the outlandish price of football season tickets and whether the product on the field is worth that price, I would like to get the MGoCommunity epinion on upgrading their football seats.
I got a call from the ticket office saying that I can upgrade to any group I want, as long as I pay the associated PSD. They cannot, however, guarantee the row or section within the group. I'm currently in the Blue group, section 40. I like the row I'm in since its reasonably close to the exit and I get a good view of whats going on, so I really have no interest in trying to get better seats within the group (i.e. getting closer to the field). I'm mildly intrigued by the offer of moving groups, but wanted to get other people's thoughts. Has anyone done this? Any insights?
Thanks in advance.
When's the last time the Michigan athletic dept had to advertise that there are better seats available if anyone wants them?
At least in the past, you could give them some general guidelines about where you wanted your new tickets to be. For example, you could tell them you preferred to be between rows 30-50 in the new section. They don't guarantee they can make that happen, but I suspect with how season ticket sales must be going (badly) that this should be an easy year to make that happen.
April 24th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
You can (and should) also make your willingness to move conditional on their meeting whatever conditions you want to put on moving. You're the customer. You get to choose whether to spend the money.
Looking at the upcoming years of crappy home games (outside of the obligatory B1G games, I'd avoid putting any more money into the investment unless you just want better seats for a year, but then you're not sure if when you move back down if you'll get the same seats you had before.
2015: Oregon State, BYU, Sparty, Ohio (Northwestern, UNLV, Rutgers)
2016: Colorado, Wiscy, Penn State (Hawaii, UCF, Illinois, Maryland, IU)
2017: Cincinatti, Air Force, Sparty, Ohio
2018: Arkansas, SMU, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn State
2019: Iowa, Sparty, Ohio
'15 is great, '16 looks pretty good to me, '17 so-so but has Sparty and Ohio, '18 is fantastic
April 24th, 2014 at 10:46 AM ^
I agree - future schedules actually look pretty good to me. We get MSU and Ohio in odd years - that's just the new system. The out-of-conference looks good and 2014 seems to be an outlier in being kinda dull.
April 24th, 2014 at 12:43 PM ^
Again, only considering non conference games, 2015 is a good year. 16 is meh, 17 sucks, 18 could be good if Arkansas has pulled their heads out of their asses by then. I just want to see us scheduling big tier games. I like the FL opener, and seeing more SEC would be nice. Granted that's not all in UM's control as obviously the SEC only plays high school teams for their non conference games.
Yeah there really isn't a bad home game on the 2015 schedule. Of course it's the year after I graduate, but I guess that's just more reason to make trips back in the fall.
April 24th, 2014 at 10:32 AM ^
I upgraded my seats. I figured why not. It's the same price per ticket and the PSD is 80% deductible. I can just readjust my other charitable donations to offset my increased PSD.
April 24th, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
I did a similar thing. I used to donate to the athletic department. With PSDs I figured that is my new donation and I no longer give beyond that. I wonder how much PSD dollars have offset by reduced donations?
April 24th, 2014 at 10:49 AM ^
I requested an upgrade (I don't think one can automatically "upgrade"; they always warn that any move is based on availability and increased PSD). But...I said I only want to upgrade if in approximately the same height (I'm ~row 45 now). If there's any year to make a move, this is it.
April 24th, 2014 at 11:01 AM ^
April 24th, 2014 at 11:03 AM ^
One, I added two extra Club seats and two, I was offered more than the 8 per person maximum. So, I grabbed a couple more in the bow as well. Here's why I upgraded and bought more. Having the chance to improve your seating for the same ticket price is pretty easy this year and the PSD is tax deductible. The schedule also gets better after this year and I would imagine our team will as well. The schedules from 2015 - 2022 are looking pretty good to me. We have dropped the directional Michigan and MAC teams for some teams like Arkansas, BYU, UCLA, Va Tech, SMU and Oregon St etc. Personally, if you get a chance to upgrade in a down year you always have the option to keep them in the future or revert back to a lower tier when you can no longer afford or want what you have now.
/s
April 24th, 2014 at 11:12 PM ^
April 24th, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^
Added a third seat and moved from the southwest to the northwest of the stadium.
They won't know until second week of May. They extended the renewal deadline to tomorrow so that pushed the process a few weeks.
You won't know if your request has been fulfilled until your tickets mail out. If they move you to a higher PSD tier, then they'll also bill for the difference.
April 24th, 2014 at 12:00 PM ^
I am in section 40 as well and asked for my tickets to be improved within the same PSD tier. I have the money now but plan to retire in a few years and don't want to be tied to an ever increasing PSD in future years. Depending upon how much of an increase we see I may move back to the end zone or drop tickets altogether in a few years. If I was in my 30's or early 40's I might look for an upgrade.
I'm in Section 40 as well, just barely in the Blue. I don't even get to use my tickets right now--I have to sell them every year, but I'd love to have better seats for the future. I wonder how far towards the 50 I could actually move and stay around Row 40? And I wonder how much it would be worth it before the cost would be so much that it would become hard to sell the tickets every year?
I renewed and included a request to move sections. After reading about lackluster sales I thought I might expand that request to include a few more sections in higher PSD levels.
I called and was told the upgrade 'report' was already run for all the requests, and thus I can't modify my request.
I don't buy it in view of their extension of the renewal period, but thought I'd pass this along.
Maybe I'll stop by in person next week and push a little harder :)
Guess I'm SOL then. Too bad.
I wanted to stay in the same tier but I wanted to move from Sec 19 to 20.
After reading this I would take advantage of moving up a tier and paying the extra PSD, that's a really good deal.
They should throw in a couple hockey and basketball tickets to sweeten the deal.