John U. Bacon: "You're killing the fanbase, David Brandon!" (Paraphrased with liberties)
Mr. Bacon has written quite a bit about why Ticket Sales have been flagging. As I, myself, have recently been offered a "deal" on single-game tickets, I love reading Mr. Bacon's salvoes over Brandon's bow:
This fall Michigan is in danger of breaking its string of 251 consecutive games with 100,000-plus paid attendance, which started in 1975.
And then this gem:
After Brandon became Michigan's 11th athletic director in 2010, he often repeated one of his favorite lines: "If it ain't broke ... break it!" You have to give him credit: He has delivered on his promise.
Happy Monday Mr. Brandon! Special Delivery for you, direct from the desk of John U. Bacon!
I agree, though some people think Lloyd slid into mediocrity well before then.
I hesitated on the "lights out" bit, but my neurons weren't firing quick enough so I ran with it. Statistically, they were lights out, though they did have one weakness.
Agreed. I try not to obsess over how companies or organizations run their budgets. They are much more informed on their own budget than I. However, I can't begin to think of anything positive that could have ever come from the skywriting. It was lame and sophomoric. It cost thousands. What a waste of money. I don't care how small that amount of money is in a $100M budget. Give it to the general scholarship fund. Or donate it to Haiti. Don't throw it away to embarrass yourself.
And yet if Michigan had beaten State last year, I'm quite sure there would be posters on this board gushing about what a brilliant move the skywriting was.
that was a juvenile move--win, lose or draw. Jesus, most of us are adults here--- hopefully, able to differentiate between an emotional response and a reasoned one. If not, heaven help our children.
So it was juvenile to say Go Blue in EL? The only complaint I have on it is that it costed money that should have been used in AA. As for it being juvenile, is it juvenile for me to wear a Michigan shirt and shout Go Blue in EL. It's not like it said Fuck State or State sucks.
What happened with the sky-writing isn't the end of the world and it didn't hurt anyone, but my god, could Dave Brandon act anymore unprofessional? He's the 2nd most powerful person at the University doing antics a drunken frat boy would do. We looked bad enough after that happened, but can you imagine what a fucking joke we would have been if we had lost that same day to fucking Akron? Do you know how fucking great it was for Sparty fans to see that writing and then a few weeks later go out and beat the living shit out Michigan? It makes me sick.
doing basic, universally accepted fan-things with an AD hiring a plane to sky-write over Spartan Stadium when we aren't even in town? Yea, I'll stick with juvenile.
I am actually headed to Haiti in two weeks on a mission trip. We will be feeding and clothing an orphanage while there and you are right about the money. $7,000 would go a long way.
I highly doubt that there will be 9,909 empty seats at any game this season.
the NW corner of the endzone was embarassingly sparsely populated. That's still the student section, isn't it?
The Game was played the Saturday following Thanksgiving, contrary to what some would have you believe. Coincedentally the 1995 game is on BTN and that game was played the Saturday following Thanksgiving as well...and what do we see? A packed Stadium.
I bet UM had a higher percentage of in-state students in 1995, though.
if it makes you feel better.
I'm just pointing it out. I'm not excusing students for not showing up to most games, but it shouldn't be a surprise that students from out-of-state that go home for Thanksgiving might not make it back until Sunday.
I would for sure make it back, but I lived only 90 minutes away. And I was bored to death in my hometown.
Typical out-of-state-freshman that goes home for Thanksgiving will probably miss the game two days after, at least until we get better and students get used to that game being after thanksgiving.
Negging bacon is simply Un-American.
The mascot "floating".
Noodles, curly fries, 200decibel rok or sweet Caroline, 3x more marketing suits, seat cushion rentals, $4 waters, constant blaring ads, jerking around the band, jerry world, Ap state 2 electric boogaloo, horrid schedules, overpricing, student attendance fiascos, etc. etc. etc.
To those of you who say everything would be fine if the team was just winning more?
We'll guess what? The silver lining around the dark cloud of Michigan football is that at least we weren't so distracted that DB couldn't push all that crap thru without anyone noticing/caring.
We're all all pretty lucky we didn't just wake up after a couple 11-1 seasons to find that DB sold our seats out from under our asses when we weren't looking.
On phone sorry if poor formatting.
guy and fireworks, more good football team.
The only thing he really changed is adding music and uniformz. I hate the alternate uniforms but we've only worn them once at home and the rest were away uniforms. The rest of it is about the team's performance and we fired our OC and got Alabama's OC.
So I guess you're down to one complaint.
Students don't have a right to complain about GA. They did it to themselves by not showing up by kickoff or not at all. Bottom line is if the SS was even 80 percent full and not 40 percent full at kickoff, there wouldn't have been GA.
Is it their fault that GS was instituted so poorly, though?
BS. 25% of those kids never attended a game at Michigan as a student. Another 25% of those students had what 6 or 7 games under their belt?
I'm siding with the students more than the AD with the GA policy. Was there a vote? did they ask the students what is the problem?
If they did...they didn't listen. Just like the end of the season questionnaire and comments sections
If this team wins and we have a better schedule...no one is taking about anyone killing the fanbase.
The stadium will be packed and the majority of the fans will be happy. Everyone? No. But the majority.
The losing and the shitty home slate in the same year gives everyone the license to bitch and feel justified.
Guarantee if Brandon did Brandon things at Alabama no one would worry and same with Michigan if that meant winning and B1G and National Championships.
Just win and the majority of this goes away. Win AND have a decent home schedule and this is almost all a bunch of nothing.
Because even if these people exisited before the losing, no one was listening when we were good. Now that we're down, there is an auidence.
I agree for the most part. When I went to the 2011 game against Nebraska, it was my first as an alum (though I was still in the student section). The incessant 7NA was really, really off-putting. To the point that I stopped cheering because they were playing it so often, or I tried to yell louder during the lulls of the song. I literally felt that we were louder in prior years when we just screamed constantly before a play instead of to the tune (so, maybe the stadium is now louder, but I think it could be even more louder if everyone cheered all the time, like used to be the case).
But you know what? It was an awesome game because we fucked the shit out of Nebraska in their first time in the B10 for our 9th win of the year leading up to OSU.
So winning is huge. Cost is also huge. The other stuff is minor. But it can be annoying. And when there's a lot of those little things added up, the couch or the bar begins to look more enticing.
I'm ok with DB. Just okay. He's done a lot of good, but most of his home-runs have been from lobbed softballs: the new video boards were going to happen. The new athletic campus was going to happen. Credit to DB for accomplishing it, though. The attitude towards students and "customers", however, is worrisome. The rising cost is worrisome. The "Super-bowl" mentality is worrisome. Scheduling App St to make a game more of a spectacle is worrisome. The bloat in administration is worrisome. His self-appointed 1.15M salary is worrisome.
It's not worth crucifying him over, but I wish he would be less corporate-y and more Hoke-y.
Fine, but does it really need to be played like 8 times per game? I'd prefer zero because I'm incredibly sick of it and everyone does it, but I'd be ok with 2 or even 3. But seriously, it's become a dangerous drinking game when I watch on tv. And Sweet Caroline...just needs to die.
Well written post, and I agree with you on the cost issue. It is inching closer to the breaking point for many people with ticket/PSD costs. The tail may be starting to wag the dog. As you mentioned, the couch or bar with 50" HD t.v.'s is becoming more attractive.
...make the games more affordable. It just fills the seats vacated by lower income die hard fans with priviledged bandwagon fans.
Folks.... that isn't the recipe for sustaining the Michigan brand.
Once those tickets move to the higher-spending, less diehard fans, one thing you're going to start noticing is more and more empty seats around the stadium and the overall atmosphere less intense. Same thing you've already seen in the NFL and MLB. Whether you're for them or not that's one by-product of the PSDs.
"People act like Bill Martin was giving tickets away like porn flyers in Vegas. Shit was expensive back then too people."
Michigan ticket price in 2014 dollars -
1900: $28
1910: $47
1920: $29
1930: $42
1940: $45
1950: $35
1960: $35
1970: $38
1980: $31
1990: $36
2000: $48
2010: $65
"Awww Dave, ya RUINED it!" a lot, even I can't give him so much credit as to have "destroyed everything good about Michigan football". Special K on the other hand...well that's diff.....ok, nevermind.
You know, this "OMG just look at this weak schedule, will you!" excuse is starting to sound extremely lame. WTF man? Sure the 2014 Michigan football schedule sucks comparatively speaking. But it's not like Michigan football never scheduled a bunch of doormat/body bag games before. I seem to recall in the 70s, 80s and 90s that Michigan's AD had the balls to schedule perennial jokes like Duke, Houston (NNTH, the non-Bill Yeoman SWC Houston), Long Beach State and EMU. I totally agree that Appalachian State Part Deux is the dumbest thing ever amen. But what the hell, man. That's not going to prevent the future from happening. Oh God, I just sounded like Dave would in that last sentence.
on the schedule there was usually only one. Now you can argue that playing ND, UCLA, and Maryland meant there were two patsies, but you'd convince few. Anyway, at no time during the 1970, 80s, and 90s did Michigan schedule the likes of CMU and EMU in one season. Scheduling two MAC or lower schools in one season is a product of the 21st C and I'm afraid the BCS system was the primary motive for doing so because, as it turned out, just winning meant more in the BCS formula than playing against good competition.
That's probably what they said about Don Canham, too, back in the day. Brandon is doing exactly the same thing Canham did, only in a different era. I agree that winning will make Brandon's crap entirely more palatable.
He's NOT doing the same thing Canham did though. Canham was revolutionary in licensing the block-M. He was a leader.
What has Brandon done? Continued Bill Martin's build-build-build and extended it to the non-revenue sports. That's GREAT. Seriously, no sarcasm.
But Brandon has also presided over unprecedented increases in football attendance cost despite the fact that we're rolling in BTN dough. You'd think with all that money coming in from TV rights that Brandon could show some appreciation to his customers. He's presided over a student-crisis. It started in '08ish and It's not necessarily all his fault, but still he hasn't made it better. He's ignored students desires. And now the numbers are drastically down.
Again, goods and bads. If I were to grade him personally, it would be an "Incomplete." But if he walked out tomorrow, it would be a "A-" on capital projects and a "D" on everything else, including AD budget costs, student-relations, alumni-relations (those of us without $200M to donate). Maybe a "C" on football gameday stuff, most of which is cost and de-emphasing the band (me epinion).
"he presided over the worst moment in Michigan history"
Uhhh......
I'll give you that - if Hoke "makes it" then DB gets a "B". Like I said, some good, some bad. Not terrible.
Harbaugh, since he wanted an NFL coaching job.
Miles was never offered because Carr did not want him at Michigan!
about a student attendance crisis starting in '08. Even during the reign of the mythical Canham, student attendance was an issue. Canham was upset that students were buying tickets on the cheap and selling them on the secondary market and so raised student ticket prices. The same issue was raised when Martin first took over and he too raised prices to disuade reselling on the secondary market.
Student attendance, or the lack of, isn't a new crisis issue, it is, and always has been, an issue.
This comment is so far off base, my blind grandmother could pick it off for the out.
Canham had a winning program and reasonably priced tickets for a quality schedule. At that time all the branding and other money raising programs were outside the ticket prices and game-day experience. That's the big difference - changing the ticket price structure is affecting who actually goes to the games and that undermines the tradition.
I have been going to games since 1969. When Canham took over he had something called band day to fill what was otherwise a half empty stadium for games against Northwestern. I used to buy walk up student tickets (K1-12) for $2. Typically sellouts were only a couple of games a year. He took that and with Schembechler building the product on the field, turned it into years of sellouts and a waiting list.
Michigan home attendance
| Year | Home Record | Attendance |
| 1968 | 5-1 | 407,948 |
| 1969 | 5-1 | 428,780 |
| 1970 | 6-0 | 476,164 |
| 1971 | 7-0 | 564,376 |
| 1972 | 6-0 | 513,398 |
| 1973 | 6-0-1 | 595,162 |
| 1974 | 6-0 | 562,105 |
| 1975 | 4-1-2 | 689,146 |
Oh by the way, the winning cures everything crowd? In 1964 when M when to the Rose Bowl, attendance was
| 1964 6-1 Home record | 380,309 Average of 54,329 per game |
If DB continues his policies you will see an inverse of this chart.
http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/stadium/stadtext/mattend.htm#attendave