Student Section needs to be reduced
November 10th, 2012 at 9:38 PM ^
you expect for the first noon home game of the year???
November 10th, 2012 at 9:39 PM ^
It's been like this for 3:30 games as well.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
but not nearly as bad as noon games.... its been like this for as long as i can remember and i've been going to games since i was 5 and i'm 34 now, so just move on and bitch about something else...
November 10th, 2012 at 9:38 PM ^
UMMMMMMMM NO.
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.
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.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:05 PM ^
This is exactly the type of thing Steve Holt's brother would say...
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.
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)
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.
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).
November 11th, 2012 at 1:54 PM ^
It's gonna be OK.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:19 PM ^
I've had to kick people out of my row in section 28 a few times this year and I haven't missed a kickoff.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:42 AM ^
We used to have to kick the same crew of Brosephs out of our seats in row B in the corner of the endzone back in 2002. Got a little chippy once or twice.
Granted, we'd always get there 2 minutes before kickoff, but we had a 3 story beer bong to attend to.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:55 PM ^
do you not plan your day/weekend around the game? 7am wake-up and immediate tailgating. You sir, have the exact attitude that can be taken care of by a better ticket system as discussed above.
November 11th, 2012 at 2:14 AM ^
November 11th, 2012 at 7:19 AM ^
. . . ?
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.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:16 PM ^
This is by far the best solution I've seen on this blog.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:27 PM ^
that's all well and good, but i don't think it's very hard to fill michigan stadium on time when we play a top 5 team either.
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.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:02 AM ^
I agree, but I'm just saying that using an example of: "USC fans went on time when they played #2 oregon!" doesn't really transfer to getting fans on time to a northwestern game
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.
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.
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.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:31 AM ^
I'll sign it. What we have going right now just looks bad.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:50 AM ^
no open container laws and no cops asking for ids = fun times for all
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.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
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!"
November 10th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^
It's embarrassing. I drove 10 hours to explain to my gf why the top rows across from us weren't filled at the MSU game.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:51 PM ^
November 10th, 2012 at 10:04 PM ^
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.
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.
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.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:32 PM ^
Both of those things have always happened. Students always partied on gameday and always tried to sneak into better seats. But they still made it to the games (and on time).
November 11th, 2012 at 12:26 AM ^
There's the problem. The students are drinking these days. Hadn't considered that.
November 11th, 2012 at 8:19 AM ^
but we'll all make sure to stay off YOUR lawn!
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.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:13 PM ^
I was there and it never actually filled up. It got most of the way there but there was still a healthy amount of empty seats up there
November 11th, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^
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
November 11th, 2012 at 12:15 AM ^
November 10th, 2012 at 9:47 PM ^
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.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:18 AM ^
There aren't 5000 no shows from the student section...the total attendance numbers woulf fall beloww 100000 if one section that make up ~1/7 of the stadium was 5000 down from a typical capacity of 110000
November 11th, 2012 at 9:19 AM ^
November 11th, 2012 at 1:54 PM ^
The official attendance is not a count of the number of people at the stadium. They count the sold tickets, plus the number of field/media passes and such. The student section's official attendance is the same for every game, since all student tickets are sold as season tickets.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:50 PM ^
I just graduated a few years ago and I swear this did not go on.