dave brandon creates empty seats

Seating available [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

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The Question:

The absence of team partisans has been a problem for awhile, and this year especially. What should be done?

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The Responses:

Ace: The lower bowl rarely fills even for big games these days, despite renovations and a decade-long tenure under a great coach whose program plays a fun brand of basketball. I’ve been screaming about expanding the Maize Rage’s courtside section for ages now. They show up earlier and more reliably than townies; they’re louder and more fun; they’ll buy more tickets if they know they have a chance at courtside seats. (Having practically zero shot was a huge deterrent when I was in school.)

There are more issues, but that’s the number one thing for me. When you see the Maize Rage on TV compared to other student sections, it’s a little embarrassing, and that’s not on the Maize Ragers.

It gets extremely frustrating to see them fill several upper bowl sections for big games while townies skip out on lower bowl seats.

They’re also best-equipped to work through the constant excuses I hear for why people don’t show up: bad weather, games too close to dinner, games too late, games too perfectly timed in the evening, etc.

Brian: While I agree that the maize rage should be expanded that takes a huge philosophical leap for the department where something other than the bottom line matters. I thought things would get better with Warde Manuel in charge, and I guess they have. Nobody's trying to put a giant noodle in Michigan stadium or momentarily banning seat cushions.

But I have to admit I'm pretty disappointed that Manuel is just a guy. His tenure at Michigan is a complete blank so far. He has not taken any steps to un-do the damage Brandon wrought, and has continued to maximize ticket revenue at all costs. Without taking a step back there it will remain as it is for all time.

Because it will cost money to make Crisler a better environment.

Ace: I really want someone to show him this:

The staid atmosphere hurts the team. Michigan is 12th in the conference in home-court advantage by KenPom’s rankings.

[How can we incentivize you to hit THE JUMP?]

The kids are alright. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

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Books themselves are being lovingly folded right now and should start shipping soon. Because of the way this works there will be a sizeable spread in delivery times (they get mailed out in batches as they're finished), but we are going to hit our mid-July goal.

More Battle. Apparently this is serious:

Would be more surprised if Tyus Battle doesn't commit to Syracuse by weekend's end than if he does commit.

— Jerry Meyer (@jerrymeyer247) June 19, 2015

It is difficult to imagine that Syracuse is suddenly the choice since they have a coach who's already announced he's retiring and are stung by NCAA sanctions, but that's basketball recruiting for you. If Battle does indeed defect and this head-fake costs Michigan Josh Langford I'm going to be pretty pretty annoyed.

Sounds like work. Kirk Ferentz is the first—only?—Big Ten coach to come out against satellite camps.

“What it really gets down to is just how you want to use your time. Me personally, I’m hopeful — and the NCAA will probably react — my personal preference is I’d like to see camps probably be limited to campus. On top of that, I would support not allowing any outsiders coming to work your camp.”

Iowa has actually done two or three of them already, but…

"We did three this year, and I don’t think we made the news for any of them. We don’t really broadcast it."

The noise you are hearing is an Iowa fan snapping a pencil with his mind.

Cost of attendance calculations. The NCAA's "Power 5" conferences adopted legislation to extend scholarship benefits to cover the full cost of attendance. What does that mean? There is a number that schools maintain called "cost of attendance" that has nothing to do with sports. It's for calculating financial aid, that sort of thing. Now that it's been dragged into a realm it doesn't really belong, people are noticing that the numbers vary a lot—and not very sensibly. Massive rent areas like Palo Alto or Ann Arbor often have nearby universities with low COA numbers; meanwhile Auburn has one of the highest numbers in the country.

How did they come to that conclusion? A lengthy Montgomery Advertiser article explains why. It has essentially been indexed to inflation from a large number determined a long time ago:

Reynolds, who has worked for Auburn for 16 years, said he inherited a cost of attendance figure when he began working for the university and has routinely increased the tuition, board, and personal figures in accordance with the Consumer Price Index, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with transportation being increased in accordance with the CPI inflation rate, and room being the average cost of all available on-campus housing, currently 4,539 beds.

"This is a financial aid budget," he said. "This isn't an athletic scholarship budget."

The $5,586 in Auburn's cost of attendance is divided into $2,728 for personal expenses and $2,858 for transportation, according to the budget Reynolds provided to theAdvertiser, and remains unchanged from a year ago.

At some point the Power 5 is going to have to come together and figure this out, because there's no way they're going to let a four-year gap of up to ten thousand dollars stand.

A nation of Joe Tillers. Back in the day, (probably) Joe Tiller used to bomb his colleagues behind their backs in entertainingly catty anonymous Athlon articles. It hasn't been the same since he retired to wherever walruses fade away, but the re-emergence of Jim Harbaugh in college has revitalized the genre. ESPN's Travis Haney interviewed a dozen or so  coaches, offering anonymity in exchange for salt($). He got some. Bret Bielema asked to be identified and said Harbaugh was rad:

“I have had great respect for Coach Harbaugh for what he built at Stanford and as a man who isn’t afraid to speak his mind,” said Arkansas coach Bret Bielema, who specifically asked to be identified on the record. “Too many people in today’s world love to voice opinions and beliefs when convenient. Few represent who they are and what they believe daily.”

And… I developed respect for Bret Bielema? Odd day.

Others did not think Harbaugh was rad:

“I think he’s nuts. He loves to stir the pot. He’ll have a very short shelf life – but he’s a very good football guy. I will be interested to see how he does there,” a Pac-12 coach said. “[Former 49ers and current Bills offensive coordinator] Greg Roman has always been the brains behind the operation. [Harbaugh] has been at private schools before so I’m interested to see how he does at a public school. There’s a huge difference in how things are handled.”

Greg Roman, Brains Behind The Operation. No offense to Greg Roman but all you have to do to dispel that is look at Harbaugh's coaching tree, which is already more impressive than most.

Others refer to Harbaugh as "Rain Man-ish," which… okay, accurate. Whole thing is insider but worth it.

Speaking of Rain Man-ish. Former 49ers tight end Delanie Walker:

"He dressed up in full gear and practiced the whole practice – pads, helmets, everything on. He had the whole uniform on,'' Walker said of Harbaugh. "We came out and said, "Who is that dude out there? And it was Jim Harbaugh. He had some old high top cleats on.

"He did pretty good. He just couldn't throw the deep, deep pass."

Walker thinks Greg Roman is not the brains behind the operation:

"I think he is going to be great (at Michigan),'' Walker said. "People buy into his philosophy. Every team he has ever been on has been good, right? So you tell me what he is going to do. Young kids love to have a coach who is crazy."

Also fans.

Just like Domino's clap clap clapclapclap. The Michigan athletic department's annual budget shows a shortfall for the first time since Tom Goss was athletic director:

Michigan's athletic department had a deficit of nearly $8 million this year, marking the first time in about a decade it operated with a loss, according to interim athletic director Jim Hackett, but he assured the budget for 2016 will be balanced.

Since Goss was working without PSLs or the Big Ten Network, that is truly impressive. Hackett explained why there was such a big shortfall:

"The result of football ticket sales being down (and) added compensation for settlements this past year caused us to have a deficit of about $7.9 million. We covered that with operating reserves, but we've got a balanced budget proposed for next year."

Michigan had to give away almost 20,000 tickets for the Maryland game, then pay Brady Hoke after they fired him, then continue paying Brandon his 100% guaranteed contract, then gather up every nickel in a five-state radius to present to Jim Harbaugh. The first three are Dave Brandon's fault. The last is a pretty good idea:

"We can tell you today, season ticket sales, which are just a portion of the stadium, will probably hit an eight-year high. We just started selling our packets, with combined games (Wednesday) online, (and) we've had almost 18,000 tickets that were sold for some of the single games. We're very optimistic about our fall and what promises there."

Michigan should get out of paying much or all of what it owed Brandon, as well. That dude somehow scoring a CEO job that should pay him more than he was getting as AD means that Michigan won't have to compensate him unless he gets fired from that gig too.

Which… well…

He's worse! /checks coaching hires… He's not good! Chip Brown lays the wood to Texas athletic director Steve Patterson in a 5,000 word piece with startling revelations like:

Steve Hank, chief revenue officer of Texas athletics, told HornsDigest.com the 6 percent average increase (actually 5.7 percent, he said, but it was rounded up) was based on a formula that involved the value of each seat “spread across” the entire, 100,119-seat capacity of Royal-Memorial Stadium.

But when comparing exactly what football season ticket holders paid in 2014, including their contribution to the Longhorn Foundation to retain those tickets, to what they are paying in 2015, season tickets were increased an average of 21.5 percent.

And:

Sources said football coach Charlie Strong, who saw his and his coaching staff’s personal ticket allotment cut from eight to four last year, fought to increase the salaries of his eight quality control coaches from $24,000 to $50,000 after last season.

Texas has the lowest salaries in the Big 12 for its quality control coaches – even behind last-place football finisher Kansas ($45,000).

Strong’s request was denied by Patterson, and six of Texas’ eight quality control coaches who had built relationships with the rest of the staff, left to find better paying jobs, the sources said.

But he did hire Charlie Strong and Shaka Smart. Despite being quite evidently an idiot. People in charge of things are just in charge of them.

Etc.: Nick Boka draft preview. Hiring Les Miles was never a good idea. Denard After Dentist game at 8 tonight on BTN. The Mack Brown-Matthew McConaughey connection.

Lochmann on the left

Jim Hackett ain't having it. A "Chief Marketing Officer" who can't even market his own brain effectively is not long for the AD:

"He resigned his position to pursue other opportunities," said Dave Ablauf, Michigan associate athletic director.

Lochmann was the living symbol of Dave Brandon's incompetence, a buzzword-spewing yes man whose only ideas were bad ones. The fact that Brandon hired a CMO whose twitter handle was "LochDogg" for at least a year after he was hired says somethin' about somethin'.

Under Lochmann's watch, Michigan aggressively polluted its gameday experiences with relentless noise, chintzy contests, and above all money-grubbing. Michigan came to be defined by the bad ideas Lochmann rolled out only to quickly reverse course on and bad ideas it was too late to do anything about except lie. Michigan lied about hiring skywriters; they claimed the Cokes-for-tickets thing was a failed "retail activation," which isn't English. Michigan increasingly focused on roping in "families of four from Grand Rapids who go to one game a year," as he told a prominent member of the alumni association, taking the core fanbase for granted.

That fanbase rebelled against his boss thanks in no small part to Lochmann. Ticket sales now hover on the edge of collapse and Michigan Stadium is just another generic sports experience.

The best news of all is that Michigan doesn't know if they're going to bother to replace him. Air would have been more effective at marketing Michigan than Hunter Lochmann was, and less expensive.