Live animals, Willy the Wolverine, Rich Eisen, Groupon, and DB's mascot hopes
Fascinating read for any Michigan fan in Michigan Today about why Michigan doesn't have a mascot:
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/06/story.php?id=8003&tr=y&auid=8513…
i'm ok without a gameday mascot. there are plenty of traditions on gameday to fill even the Big House
In the spirit of sparty, "thanks, brah!"
Was this after they pained the "M" on the diag?
I believe this is actually just a photoshop and not real.
Note the similarity in the marketing between the Big Chill (a great event and I actually like the bizarre sweaters) and the upcoming ND game. The tight "branding" is painfully obvious and is trending toward the exact manufactured "tradition" that we escaped when Willy was sent to the hinterlands. What Tiger Stadium had was real. If Illitch wanted a ferris wheel or tap room on site he could easily have done it. It wasn't in the right neighborhood, however, so he build Comerica. Not a bad stadium, but the pewabic tiles, merry go round, plate shaped dirt around home, and teak chairs behind the plate are all more kitch than tradition. Overall the place as all the "feel" of a waiting area at the Secretary of State's (beer helps). It all reminds me that I can't take my son and daugher to the place where my folks took me. Fortunately or unfortunately Comerica works for its owner. I see very little that DB would prevent if money for HIS athletic department were at stake (I'm dissapointed that we get to look forward to still more Journey pumped through the loudspeakers). Go Blue!
Balances the new seats in the South end with something like this in the North end?
A "Wolverine's Den" or something?
We could bring in Mike Leach to run the offense.
Check out "The Wolverine Way" by Doug Chadwick. It's a good and quick read and it documents what we all inherently suspected- Wolverines are about as cool as critters get.
Awesome book btw....
...NO MASCOTS!!!!
"Our history and our tradition is great for those of who were there to experience it, or remember it," Brandon said, "but there's a generation coming up and you've got to connect with them and keep them excited."
You have my approval, and likely Lamarr Woodley's, as well.
Lets turn his avatar into the mascot....scare the crap out of the children.
I didn't design it....
(Chunkums, you ok with that?)
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/i-was-bored-so-i-made
(And funny, he was talking about mascots...)
Original-
If we could actually bioengineer a 10 ft tall real-life were-wolverine, that would be acceptable to me.
(or offense, for that matter) we need to get them working on this, stat!
Or we could go the "traditional" route. Just get bitten by a wolverine when the moon is full, and the wolverinesbane is in bloom.....
Just think of the children of rival fan bases going home and having nightmares of the "wolverine" under thier bed.
It's strange, we've had generations of kids, millions of them, who have successfully been turned into Michigan fans without having to exploit a mascot for the "revenue stream."
Does Dave Brandon not know how to leave things alone?
No, there is not a mascot in the sense of Brutus the Buckeye, Bucky the Badger or whatever that thing in East Lansing is but Michigan does have a mascot. There is quite alot of paraphenalia with the iconic wolverine image on it. Also, when I am at the zoo and by the wolverine area, I always hear kids shouting out, "It's a wolverine". Part of me kind of wishes that Michigan had a mascot in the sense of the other mascots I mentioned above but I don't see any way to do a wolverine justice. While they are cute animals, they aren't the kind of cute that translates well to a cartoony mascot. They generally end up looking like a bear or something else. So I don't know.
There's probably something to be said for Brandon's quote about kids. My daughter loves Paws at the Tigers games. She's almost four and is starting to get some comprehension of baseball, but she loves to see Paws and she loves to ride the merry go round and ferris wheel and I'm fine with that. She like Austin Jackson because she got a bobblehead of his at a game. A lot of us that use this site are hardcore types that would be into a team anyway, but the fact that I can get my daughter to break away from her princesses to watch the Tigers with me for 20 or 30 minutes at this age is nice, and I think those marketing type things make a difference.
people might not like it, but this is pretty spot-on.
I can buy that small children would go for a mascot - but they are only a small portion of the stadium-going crowd.
But, there's no way my wife and I would get to any Tigers games if there wasn't something to keep my daughter entertained. By the time we buy three tickets, a few rides on the ferris wheel, a few drinks, dogs, and ice cream, the Tigers have well over $100 that they wouldn't have had without something to keep her busy.
Small children may be only a small portion of the crowd at football games, but they make up a much larger portion of the crowd at other Michigan events, such as women's basketball, women's gymnastics, and baseball--and probably men's basketball as well. I could see a mascot--if a decent one could be designed--being a real drawing card for some of these other sports.
or so it seems. Indiana University expanded its stadium and the area around it to make it more family friendly. Kids can play football on turf and have other games to occupy them while the adults talk about how awesome it will be to beat Purdue later in the season.
Even Purdue tried to change its mascot to make it more appealing to kids. The nicer-looking mascot was voted back to the original, but Purdue still showed a willingness to cater to the family.
The fact is, if DB wants more butts in the seats, maybe families are the way to go. You sign up an alumnus, you get one person on the list. You sign up a Michigan family, you get them, their kids, their fellow alumni, etc.
I'm not an economist, I'm a law student, but this seems to make sense. If you make it fun for the whole family, a whole family would be more likely to go.
If we do get a mascot, though, I just hope it doesn't wear a skirt (I'm looking at you, Sparty)
The whole cutesy mascot idea is perfectly in line with DB's corporate pandering philosophy.
Even as a little kid, I thought the Detroit Lions mascots were disgustingly stupid. My friends and I were fans of Michigan during all of our growing-up years and were fine without a mascot.
Michigan is one of the few teams that eschewed the whole silly mascot idea. Now he wants to bring it back? I'm ready to puke and shit at the same time.
Every time DB opens his mouth, I wish he'd find another pizza company to run and get off our lawn.
You were exceptions than, not the rule. Most kids think mascots are cool and they create a family friendly atmosphere. Like how one poster mentioned Comerica Park and all the fun they provide kids. Can we give things a chance before we chew them out? If it's a bad idea we'll drop it. Christ some people sound like kids not wanting to eat their veggies before trying them out. You don't stay relevent in this day and age without trying new things. Does no one try changes at their jobs or professions? DB is an athletic director charged with leading a department into the future, not a museum director. Nothing is wrong with tradition, but it's not everything, and new traditions are made everyday.
How about:
Dave Brandon really leaves me with a cold, icy feeling in my bones. I am not fond of the man.
Firing RR? Hiring Hoke? Ushering in the new stadium renovations? Hockey in the big house? Night game against ND? Legacy uniforms? It can't merely be his interest in pursuing a mascot?
Not hiring Hoke in December. The whole God-awful coaching search.
Not killing spin-master Special K and letting the bodies hit the floor.
Selling out the University for any penny he can find.
Let's not kid ourselves. Dave Brandon doesn't care about little kids at games; as we've said kids have grown up loving Michigan for decades. He sees a potential revenue stream. That's all he cares about.
We need a new tag to go along with "Brady Hoke Gets It." "Dave Brandon Doesn't Get It." or "Dave Brandon Gets It... if it brings money."
I agree about some of commercialism stuff (though I think it's a little hypocritical for fans to demand 27 competitve varsity sports teams and then criticize the AD for trying to find ways to fund them), but I definitely disagree about the coaching process.
If Brandon had hired Hoke in December, you'd better believe a lot of Michigan fans would be pissed off that he "didn't try to get Harbaugh" and would view Hoke as a consolation prize. They would be convinced that Harbaugh would have taken the job, just as legions are convinced to this day that Miles was waiting by the phone in '07. There would also be plenty of disgruntled RR supporters convinced that, given a month to prepare, he'd have beaten Miss State. Waiting a month made the decision on RR clearer and also made it clear that Harbaugh wasn't coming.
The whole actual coaching search took one week and had few leaks. We still don't know what exactly went down in the "five cities in six days" other than that he apparently contacted Miles and then hired Hoke. Contrast this with the absolute fiasco in November-December 2007, when we flailed about for three weeks before RR fell into Bill Martin's lap. The comparison between the two is night and day.
While I happy for the athletes who get an opportunity, and don't begrudge them, I'm not thrilled we're adding sports in a time of economic distress, where we should probably be holding or trimming. Eventually they're going to hit a limit fans can't pay for.
And even if someone thinks the PROCESS was a disaster, it was still loads better than the process (small p...yeah, yeah that's what she said) the previous time, no doubt. Now whether that means the last one wasn't so bad, or the previous one was horrendous, that's for every individual to decide.
I don't really care either way about a mascot. I do agree with the aspect about little kids liking it and making it family friendly.
All the DB hate on this board is getting pretty damn annoying. The man understands tradition--he does but he also realizes there is another big part of the fan base.
"I'm struck by the fact that when opposing teams come to our stadium, and they bring a mascot, all of our young fans are lined up to see if they can get a picture taken with it, whether it's the Penn State Nittany Lion or Sparty," Brandon told Michigan Today. "That's a little annoying to me.
WOW! What an asshole this guy is. What say we storm Schembechler Hall with a with pitchforks?
If DB brings a mascot into the big house. I'm going to have an aneurism.
Show me just one mascot that is anything but a live animal that is acceptable and I am on board. If we attempt a live wolverine handled with all the care of the Colorado Buffalo or the Air Force Falcon before the game that would actually be cool. Any Herbie The Husker or Brutus knockoff is simply not worth it.
is watching you poop...with an ax in his hands.
HEEEEEERE's HERBY!!!
Given our choice seems to be a walking box of curly fries or a mascot, I guess we have to bite the bullet on the mascot. Although watching the curly fries flee in terror from a real wolverine would also be acceptable.
On the topic of wolverines rage issues. A friend of mine was working a project to tag and track wolverines. He went to take one out of a humane trap, it twisted free and got a piece of him. Long story short they had to air lift him back to an ER room for three digits worth of stitches. Wolverines are fur, pointy ends and anger issues basically.
I wouldn't be opposed if it's done right.
Of course, any time you go to change/add anything there's going to be a collective group of people grumbling "This is MICHIGAN. We are better than X." Where X, of course, is whatever change is being considered.
At some point you guys are going to realize that a mascots target demographic isn't guys over 20 without kids who post on mgoblog all day. Little kids love mascots, parents like when their kids are happy, the school likes it when parents by shit to make their kid happy. A mascot makes sense, it doesn't actually hurt you at all and makes kids happy, not really all that hard to see why it makes more sense than not to have a mascot.
Parents will buy their kids plenty of M crap without the mascot. Mine did. I did for my kids. I also have for my new grandson.
Get off my lawn.
I concur with BlueHills. Get off my lawn as well. In fact, stop walking on other people's lawns as a general proposition, ok Sonny?
If we do get a (costume) mascot, it better look a hell of alot better than that maize and blue, tiger/bear looking paper mache thing that MSU students made in 2003....right before we beat them.
I'm not a fan of the mascot idea but if Brandon is hell-bent on doing it, he should make a costume version of the 1920's or 30's era wolverine with the sailor hat.
I think that one would be the best option. You don't want it to look too cutesy like Willy. The retro version has an edginess to it without causing trauma to small kids.
the only acceptable mascot at this point is a giant shoelace with wings.