Student Section needs to be reduced

Submitted by bassmaster on

I know it's their school now, but god damn, this has been going on for too long. Just reduce it by a section let people who will show up get those seats. Today it looked like 5,000 seats were empty through the first quarter. 

Blazefire

November 10th, 2012 at 9:40 PM ^

Enacting a proper ticket protocol, rather than the crap they enacted earlier this year, is the answer.

Tickets that don't scan 15 Mins before game time for FB/BB & 5 before other sports lose points for renewal for next year. Miss two consecutive games entirely withought getting in touch with the ticket office, have your student seats transferred imediately to somebody else on the wait list.

kevin holt

November 10th, 2012 at 9:52 PM ^

Wait list? There is no wait list for student tickets. And that would leave a backlog of people emailing the office trying to give excuses.

For noon games I'd often come in around 2 minutes before/after kickoff, because of a) lines b) I sleep late and fuck waking up oh shit there's a game today let me throw on shoes and not-enough-clothes-shit-it's-cold-let-me-go-back-and-get-a-coat and c) SHIT MORE LINES

But I think exactly at gametime would be a reasonable cutoff. However, what I've noticed lately (idk if this has happened for a while), is that people push to the front no matter what seats they're actually in.

When I was a wee freshman, we would push up if rows in front of us were empty, sure. But not until maybe the second quarter. We weren't idiots and realized those people weren't there yet, not that they just wouldn't show up. But I went to the MSU game and it seemed like everyone around me was packed two-to-a-seat while the top was sparse. Freshmen need to wait their turn and stay up instead of pushing down. That might explain the empty seats up top. Just a theory.

Blazefire

November 10th, 2012 at 10:09 PM ^

You don't even see it,. "Eh, I'll get up when I get up and get there whenever the game starts. Good enough."

No. Arriving when the game starts gets you to your seet 10 minutes after kickoff at best. Not planning your day and setting your frigging ALARM makes you late. You're a goddamn student at the University of Michigan. Some of us never had the resources to recieve that privlige. Get there early. Get in YOUR seat and cheer your fucking ass off.

kevin holt

November 10th, 2012 at 10:21 PM ^

Well I'm not in undergrad anymore, so I'm actually not part of the problem now! I wasn't exactly clear enough, but I meant I went to only the MSU game this year. I was only fortunate enough to get away from St. Louis long enough to go to a game. But I understand your butthurt (read: legitimate anger)

coldnjl

November 11th, 2012 at 6:12 AM ^

You are right, they are a Student at the University of Michigan. It is there right to attend these games and they paid for their tickets and will show up when they want to. The students don't care if other people who couldn't get accepted to the U are bitching about it, nor should they have to. These sports are for them first and formost. Remember that please

I do like the idea of rewarding students better seats not just for seniority as they do now, but for time of arrival. 

814 East U

November 11th, 2012 at 12:12 PM ^

I say reward the kids that show up early as opposed to punishing those who show up late.  Michigan should have a first come first serve seating priority instead of assigned seating IMO. As a recent gradute it bothered me when a group of drunk sorority girls showed up in the 3rd quarter or almost halftime and expected their prime seats to be empty. Having assigned seats allows students to show up late (in their minds).

CleverMichigan…

November 10th, 2012 at 10:53 PM ^

Make the student section first-come, first-serve. 

Story time:

I went to the USC-Oregon game last weekend. Had a GREAT time tailgating in 80 degree weather, booze a-flowin, every bit as wild as our tailgates at UM were before the crackdown on State Street houses, if not more so. 

BUT

There was a mass exodus from the awesome campus tailgates by the students about 30-45 minutes before kickoff. We needed to head to the Coliseum early so my friend's sister and her friends could get seats in the student section, which is first-come, first-serve. I didn't see anyone camping out a la Paternoville, but either they have some restriction on entry time or no one wants to try that in South Central LA. They also use color-coded wristbands to keep some semblance of order, but I was too many sheets to the wind to fully understand the system. Their student section filled quickly and efficiently long before the non-student seats did. 

Conclusion: If you can drag the hard-partying SC student body from their gloriously warm and sunny pregames to that hideous coliseum, where the ones that know anything about football were fully expecting to be demolished by Oregon, we have room for improvement.  

CleverMichigan…

November 10th, 2012 at 11:47 PM ^

But you're saying all we need to do is book the top 6-8 teams each year for our home schedule? Excellent, let's start a petition. 

From what I gather, the complaints on this thread are saying that regardless of opponent, start time, or anything else, the students are just getting worse and worse. I think that moving to first-come, first-serve is worth serious consideration. 

CleverMichigan…

November 11th, 2012 at 12:12 AM ^

Whereas our students are stoked to see a good game and be on TV, the SC bros were all "Duuuuuude we're gonna get crushed, maybe we should just party more...." and left earlier. 

Also, fun fact: They still have their 2004 championship listed on the press box in the Coliseum because only the BCS took it away, not the AP. 

farside286

November 11th, 2012 at 1:48 AM ^

But the conversation isn't about the fans but rather the students.  They were there real early.  Plus they make it real hard to sell tickets to outsiders as the student tickets can only sell tickets to people with school id's.  As a result, people get to the stadium relatively early to get into the good sections of the student section.

Also random things about USC football.  Who the fuck designed that stadium?  You feel soo far away from the game in the seats.  However, they sell these things called guest tickets to the students.  They can bring friends to games and into the student section for less than face value.  Obviously they don't have them for big games but I thought that was kinda cool.  It just doesn't work when the entire stadium sells out though.

 

 

freernnur5

November 11th, 2012 at 11:33 AM ^

The LA Coliseum was built for the Olympics originally (1932 and then later 1984) and not intended solely for football. As such the field and track is a larger area than a football field so certain sections are very far away.

I sat in one of those sections for the USC vs. Oregon game and it feels very far away. Was a really cheap seat though.

TheLastHarbaugh

November 11th, 2012 at 12:58 AM ^

You realize that probably 90-95% of the kids supposed to be sitting in those empty seats are at the game, right? They're just not sitting where they are supposed to be sitting.

I would hazard to guess that half of the first 25 rows are filled with students who ought to be sitting about 70 rows higher up. If you've ever sat in the lower part of the student section, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why everyone is cramped together worse than rush hour traffic on the 405.

 

rob f

November 11th, 2012 at 8:17 AM ^

But those kids that "plan on showing up late the following year"?  How do you determine who it is that is making such plans for the 2013 Football Season?  Hacking into their planners on their computers/iPhones/tablets/other assorted e-devices?  Or just peeking over their shoulders when they are writing things on next year's calendar?  Sounds too 'big-brotherish' to me.

Besides, college kids that plan that far ahead?  Reward them!  Most that age subscribe to the mindset "Live for Today!"

lonewolf371

November 10th, 2012 at 9:44 PM ^

It probably should be reduced, and I'm saying that as a student. However, does Michigan still have the demand for the general public to buy up all those extra seats? Tickets are very pricey right now, and as we're seeing elsewhere around college football the demand for tickets is becoming more elastic each year.

543Church

November 10th, 2012 at 9:45 PM ^

It did look pathetic.  I don't know why things have changed since us old timers would fill the student section by 11:30 just 10-15 years ago.   I blame smartphones....kids are too busy updating the facebook and twitters.

 

 

 

SEAL Fan

November 10th, 2012 at 10:26 PM ^

Here's the problem:

 

1.  Students are too busy drinking before the game.  The last of them walk in with 8:00 minutes left in the second quarter.

 

2.  They don't sit in their assigned seats.  The majority of them pile down toward the field, which makes life awful for the students with good seats. 

 

 

TheGhostofYost

November 10th, 2012 at 9:46 PM ^

This is a stupid idea.  Why would reducing the size help the problem of people showing up late?  It was completely full by the end of the 1st quarter. 

slaunius

November 11th, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^

This has been said elsewhere, but that's not necessarily because the students weren't there. The bottom 10 rows of the student section are filled to probably 150-200% capacity, and the next 30 are probably around 125-150%. If every single person with a ticket showed up, you would still get quite a few empty rows because of this.

lhglrkwg

November 11th, 2012 at 12:25 PM ^

Well during the game I was actually somewhere around row 15 and I had plenty of room to stand. I've been to games where everyone stands sideways down low and this was not one of them.

The people packing in argument works if the top if thin, but when there's cavernous open sections, it's really a stretch

lazyfoot10

November 10th, 2012 at 9:47 PM ^

For the love of god people. It isn't full up there because everybody squeezes down to get better seats. When we sat down at halftime, people had to sit on each other's laps because there wasn't enough space for everybody. The gripes about not getting there on time are legit but people not showing up on time is not why the top section is empty

snarling wolverine

November 10th, 2012 at 9:53 PM ^

That doesn't explain it.  Students have always tried to move down from their official seats.  In years past, though, it was a lot harder to move down because there weren't 5,000 no-shows at every game.  I don't know why, but there seem to be a lot more students that just plain don't show up on a regular basis.