Serious Question - Why Are People Angry With Season Ticket Holders Not Renewing?

Because 7 and 4 and OSU will probably give us a curb stomping.  

People are just plain old pissed off.  You could post that you are going to have a ham and cheese for lunch and someone will call you an asshole for saying that.

I couldn't care less whether you renew or not.  

I don't much care either way, but if you don't want season tickets then feel free to not renew. But then don't bitch in five years when you want back in and you are blocked in a queue. But yeah, if you don't want to spend thousands of dollars more power to you.

We made the decision not to renew for next year.  The biggest reasons were the poor home schedule in 2014 and next year  being my daughters senior year of high school, it is becoming more and more difficult to attend weekly.  Aside from that, the seat license makes selling tickets and recuperating your costs almost impossible.  We decided that we will attend a game or two at the big house and go on the road to Sparty next year for a change.  The impact that this seaons performance on the field in my own decision making process is limited.  Mind you if we were 10-1 or 11-0 going into this weekend the decision would be a lot harder.

I have twice in the past week told someone to GTFO and to not let the door hit them in the ass on their way out. But both times that was not directed at people not renewing their season tickets, it was directed at people that stated they were giving up on the team altogether until they were good again, stating they were going to sell their UM gear and never watch a game until the team was decent. Those people can GTFO for all I care, and I think that I'm probably in the majority opinion where we don't want fair weather fans of the team.

As to season ticket holders, if you're not going to renew but still go to every game by getting tickets cheaper on the secondary market, and you're just avoiding paying your PSL, then I am okay with that decision. From a budgetary standpoint, that makes a ton of sense. However, If you are giving up your season tickets and stating you're not going to go to the games until the team improves, then you're being fairweather and in that case my GTFO comments stand.

I feel like many above. I don't care that you aren't renewing, or anyone else for that matter. It's just annoying hearing you almost brag about that fact. If you aren't happy with the product your non renewal will send that message to the AD. Posting it here 100 times makes it sound like you just want attention.

When I get irritated at angry fans, it is usually because they express an unhealthy sense of entitlement regarding the PERFORMANCE of the team. That somehow they have been personally insulted by what has happened on the field/court/ice.
Perhaps my least pleasant sports experience ever was at the 2004 CCHA championship at the Joe, which Michigan lost to a valiant underdog OSU club. Some guy sat behind us who was not a serious hockey fan and probably couldn't name more than two players on the team (meanwhile I had not only the lines but stats and matchup rotations memorized). He spent the entire game swearing, whining, and insulting the players, spilled beer down my wife's shirt, and generally made the game miserable. OSU fans at the game in Columbus are more civilized.
It was the "entitlement" that was the worst. Like somehow the players owed him something in return for his going to the trouble of watching them. That's bothersome.
I also dislike heated, vacuous generalizations. Some posters I otherwise respect on here have peculiar blind spots when it comes to, say, DB or Borges. Not that they are merely unhappy with them, but that they speak in demonizing absolutes about them. DB is a good-for-nothing soulless money-grubber with no redeeming value whose actively hates Joe average ticket buyer and wants Michigan to perform badly because he's making money; or I'm quitting because Hoke has not publicly thrown Al Borges under the bus, fired him, locked him in stocks on South U yet.
The fact is that tickets are very expensive and that it is entirely rational to question whether or not it is worthwhile to invest the money required to buy them. The team is struggling and it is entirely rational to doubt whether or not it will be an enjoyable product to watch next year. People who do not buy season tix are not lesser fans for considering this.
But demonizing Brandon (not to be confused with disagreeing with him, which I healthily indulge in myself) or demanding that Hoke actively seek unprofessional ways to attack Borges publicly in ways that would harm his ability to hire other quality coordinators is excessive and wrong.
Now, if prices continue to be exorbitant next season, and if Al is retained, people are going to vote with their wallets, and I won't blame them a bit. But in that case their actions will do the talking, and it works a lot better than just griping about individuals.

And FWIW I think Borges gets fired no later than the week after the bowl game. And I think people are crazy for thinking that any AD of a modern athletic department would behave significantly better than Brandon with regards to fund-raising and ticket prices. That doesn't mean he shouldn't freeze or even lower prices this year, though--but more to the point, knowing the market and the landscape, his drive to keep the money moving will have a direct effect on the former point of this paragraph.

There is a game that I run with my students called "The Ultimatum Game". Basically you give a person a choice of how to split money and the other person can reject meaning they both get nothing. So you have to offer the least amount that you think the other person will take. In business classes my students will often offer a 90-10 split and they would also accept such a split. In econ which has a lot of non-business majors the split is normally 50-50 and they reject offers that are more unfair. There is no right or wrong split it is just important that both know what the other want because if not the offers will be seen as too high or two low and see the other as a sucker or just reject it.

I think we see the same thing on these boards. People are assume that everyone has the same "fanhood" as them. I am an alum so others with a degree (or same type of degree - undergrad vs grad) can be "real" fans and everyone else is just a poser that got a jersey from WalMart even if they have attended more games per year. I have season tickets to 5 sports so if you just support football then you are just riding on the good times and don't really support the university. I have season tickets so everyone else is not a real fan because they don't buy them.

So what happens when you are a person that I would consider a real fan? I have season tickets to football and so everyone else with season tickets is what I consider a real fan. When you drop your tickets, and I can't rationalize that because of financial hardship, then I have to reject that you ever were really a fan. It is basically the No True Scotsman fallacy. I guess we could call it the No True Fan in this case.

Attacking someone's core beliefs will always lead to an emotional response. That is all you are seeing.

I don't think we have any right to judge another person's decision to renew or not renew season tickets. That's a big committment to make. By all means, don't buy the tickets if you're not satisfied with where the program is and cannot justify the expense. You don't owe Michigan football anything at that point. It's a big expense, and if you'd rather take your money elsewhere, then fine. It doesn't necessarily mean you have given up on Michigan at all...you may still watch the games on TV, anyway. There is a bit of fairweather mindedness to it, but I'm not going to heavily chastise you for doing it, because it's not my money. College football is becoming exceedingly expensive to attend. Brian has a point here (though how it relates to Hoke's super bad f-word the other day is suspect at best)

Where my bigger issue comes is with those who have bought the tickets but then sell the ones for the most important game of the year to fans of your archrival. That makes you very VERY fairweather. If you don't want to go, then fine, don't go (you're still fairweather, but whatever) But I'd rather it be an empty seat than a tool in red. If you really must sell your ticket, then at least go through the effort to sell it to a fellow Michigan fan. If you really care about Michigan enough, you'll go through that effort. 

As a general rule, when someone says "don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out" they aren't angry that you're leaving.

The biggest lie from the athletic department is the notion that if you don't donate to the Athletic department, you are less of a fan. Why do we, as fans, continue to perpetuate that notion? I would argue that there are a ton of charitable causes that are severely underfunded and defendant on donations to survive. Our athletic department is financially solvent and will still exist whether you donate or not. Season tickets can be purchased on the secondary market for less than the cost of face value tickets + PSD, so who could criticize someone if they decided to donate the cost difference to a greater good?

I'm not angry, but it's a bit sad to read that long-time season ticket holders no longer feel it is worth it. No one should be giving fans who decide not to renew a hard time, though.  

I posted this in other threads that have since been deleted.  But if people have life changes or the costs are getting too high or whatever other reasonable reason, few begrudge them that.

It's the way you're doing it, and the reason - you are walking away because the team is losing more than you think they should.  And frankly you're grandstanding and nearly congratulating yourself for doing so.  You're feeding into the ridiculous drama that's played out on these boards over the last week, and ingratiating yourself to others who are feeling one way: the team is losing, and that hurts me, and I'm lashing out. 

Rather than recognize this, you and others (including Brian) have created a meme: "Thangs are going in the wrong direction, and they won't change in like, ever.  I'm checking out.  Pile on the lamentations."  That's quite a change from "Rows of Teeth".  And that's the fairweather aspect - you were giddy after ND, so none of this AD complaining or pricing or muzac really meant anything.  Now with the losses (and the abonimable offense, I agree Borges must be fired), you're in pyro mode.  If you walk away when things get difficult, the others standing with you in that diffculty are going to have a problem. 

but from what I've read in the seemingly hundreds of comments by people who aren't renewing, the decision is most often not solely because of the team's recent struggles—it's the struggles on top of the huge increases in ticket prices since 2000, especially the PSLs.

David Brandon has seemingly approached ticket pricing with the belief that the desire for Michigan tickets is so inexhaustible that people will pay literally any price for them, regardless of the circumstances. That he can ratchet up the prices without regard to the quality of the schedule or the quality of our play and still fill the stadium to capacity for each game.

He's going to find out very soon that's not the case here, and that many loyal fans in fact do have a price point beyond which they won't go. When they read about the operational surplus in the athletic dept that's in the millions, it makes them particularly angry when Brandon wants to charge them extra for ass cushions, and signs contracts for prime games in off-campus venues yet arranges for horrible home schedules.

I suspect to many such fans our athletic department's constant mantra of "The Team, the Team, the Team" has been replaced by "The Money, the Money, the Money."

 

I wonder how many of those that are not renewing will attend the game this Saturday.

4 Season tickets to Michigan football ~$2,000

4 Seat licenses to Michigan football ~$300

Season parking at pioneer ~$300

Quality time spent with my Father and my Son at one of the greatest sports venues in the country supporting the winningest program in college football history: 

-Priceless...  Call me crazy