The Ridiculous OSU attendance
I'm hoping people besides myself were shocked at how many Ohio State fans were in the stadium today??
Anyone want to wager a guess as to what their attendance numbers were? When I looked on TV later, the blimp shot was incredible...the non-press box side of the stadium looked entirely red.
It was simultaneously embarrassing and impressive...I imagine there were at least 10,000 of their fans there. I don't ever want to see that again!
November 21st, 2009 at 10:22 PM ^
much more than 10,000
November 21st, 2009 at 10:26 PM ^
On the way to stadium, I thought "fine, there are all these OSU fans walking around now, but they'll be vastly outnumbered once we get inside". Then as I started getting closer and closer to the stadium, and I saw more and more OSU fans. Then I got in the stadium and it was a nightmare. Too many Michigan "fans" sold their tickets to OSU fans. One of my friends was saying "if an OSU fan offered me $200 for a ticket I'd take it". NEVER.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:31 PM ^
I think it's things like this which a lot of people refer to when they question the passion of our fanbase. In a rivalry game, that absolutely should not happen.
If you're going to flake out and sell your ticket, sell it to a Michigan fan.
As it goes with crowd noise, it's fair game with loyalty/attendance: your focus should be on helping Michigan, not passively enjoying the experience or making a quick buck.
Sickening, and shame on those people.
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 AM ^
I just went to watch the highlights and saw the stadium. It looked even worse on TV. I am embarrassed and angry.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:32 PM ^
The UofM "fan" in front of me had 4 tickets, brought his wife (that had no interest in the game) and TWO Buckeye fans... So essentially his 4 tickets resulted in 2 people cheering against the team and just 1 for it...
November 21st, 2009 at 10:26 PM ^
selling their tickets......
One thing I did enjoy is the attempt by the Buckeye cheerleaders to get the O-H-I-O chant going. Major Fail.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:28 PM ^
Not sure if you were at the same game, but the chant was more than audible at least twice. It was pretty embarrassing.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:37 PM ^
That game they actually had it going several times and none of our fans tried to drown it out. I was a fool that year and I didn't heckle it, but in my defense I was freezing my ass off in that sleet and I was so pissed and hoarse in the 4th quarter that I didn't have it in me.
This year as soon as they started the "O" I stood up and booed the shit of it as loud as I could, and tons of other people in my section followed suit. The students booed loudly, too. Much, much better response this time around IMO.
Many aspects of our fandom were worse this year than in 2007, but drowing out the "Look ma, I can spell!" chant was one area where we improved, IMO.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:33 PM ^
Their "attempt" definitely succeeded ...
I'd guess there were 20,000 OSU fans at least.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:37 PM ^
I didn't heard them get past H, but I suppose it could have been where I was sitting. However, I was in 15, which was in the thick of the madness.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 PM ^
take a look online you'll see it was a major success
November 21st, 2009 at 10:26 PM ^
I was incredibly shocked, and frankly, pissed off.
I think this has a lot more to do with it than just "making it a Maize Out." I know you really have to motivate the blue hairs to get them to join in, but this isn't really about the Maize Out. (The Block M looked good, FWIW.)
This is about M fans selling their tickets to OSU fans. If you're going to do that, you might as well revoke your fan card right now.
It looked like the Nuts took over the Stadium. What a disgrace.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:35 AM ^
It did look like they took it over but I was pleasantly surprised by how few of them there were in the student section. There was one Buck who looked kind of like Fidel Castro behind me and like two further down in the section, but not much other than that except waaaay at the top.
Also, after seeing it in person, their band isn't the best, not by a longshot. They just match in ranks and hold an OSU banner and an Ohio flag. They didn't do anything really impressive, and one of our band members explained script Ohio to me and it turns out it's actually really easy.
PS - Can anyone post a picture of the block M from yesterday?
November 21st, 2009 at 10:31 PM ^
This crap reminds me of ND fans selling their tickets to Nebraska fans about 10 years ago, Notre Dame Stadium looked like a sea of red that day. I thought that would never happen @ Michigan Stadium, but obviously today proved me wrong. Embarrassing..
November 21st, 2009 at 11:19 PM ^
It wasn't THAT bad. In that game, Nebraska fans were literally the majority at ND Stadium. Here, we were still very much the majority, but not as overwhelmingly as we should be at home.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 PM ^
Yeah, we were the majority, but not by very much. It sure seemed around 65/35 or 70/30 split to me.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:31 PM ^
Michigan fans should be embarrassed at what we let happen in our stadium today. It was sickening. I was so pissed off looking at all the red around that stadium and was ashamed that this fan base would sell off like that. I know OSU travels well, and will have a large section high up in one of the endzones, but there were large pockets of OSU fans everywhere. Anyone from students to alumni, if you sold your tickets to an Ohio State fan, you should be ashamed of yourself. There is no excuse for doing that. There wasn't any Michigan fan you could find to sell your ticket to? Or how about going and supporting your team regardless of their record or probability of winning...against your biggest rival!?!
What a complete fucking embarrassment.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 AM ^
milling about the Stadium before the game I was concerned; what I saw/heard inside was appalling. I'm not looking forward to seeing how the stadium appeared in the aerial footage during the broadcast. It pains me to say this, but I seriously doubt we'll ever see that much maize/blue in the Horseshoe. Ira Weintraub suggested on the post-game show that there is a way to formally address this problem, but I lost the signal at that point. Anyone know what he was suggesting?
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 AM ^
Take away their tickets. Apparently Alabama does it.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:34 PM ^
I couldn't really believe it either. I drive from Columbus and every week I see a good amount of Michigan fans driving up with me but today it seemed I didn't see many UM fans till I hit Michigan.. I knew early on in the day that I was going to be surrounded by OSU fans, it's bad enough I have to live in this damn city and deal with them daily..
November 21st, 2009 at 10:34 PM ^
I would say there were about 35K there. It was embarrasing. Their OHIO was louder than anything we did. Sad, really.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:44 PM ^
are you high? Did you listen to the crowd on 3rd down? It was pretty damn loud in my section, I don't know about yours. I couldn't talk to the people next to me.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:21 PM ^
Yeah, I thought our fans (the ones who showed) were pretty vocal. I saw people standing and yelling who normally are very quiet.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:17 AM ^
I heard an H-O-M-O chant in the tunnel today. I thought that it was a funny (if not PC) response to the O-H-I-O chant.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 PM ^
Yea, one of my friends started it and me being me, I wasn't really pleased, but I had no better suggestions.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
No way, dude. That was the loudest it's been there all year, with 20k less M fans than usual in the stadium. I wish we were that loud every game because I could not hear ANYTHING, even on first and second down.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:37 PM ^
the average jackass that sells his U-M tickets to a hilljack from OSU probably doesn't spend his spare time perusing the message board at mgoblog.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:40 PM ^
I just needed to vent my anger after witnessing that horrendous visual display.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:42 PM ^
well, i guess we have to do the same thing to the Shoe next year???
Have a maize out in Columbus
November 21st, 2009 at 10:45 PM ^
absolute abomination. why the hell would anyone sell your ticket to an osu fan? 1/4 of the people in my section were osu fans! that better not fucking happen in 2012.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:55 PM ^
Or 2076 for that matter
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:21 AM ^
Or 207[odd number] for that matter
November 21st, 2009 at 10:58 PM ^
The game in 2012 will be in Columbus. So, you can be absolutely sure that Buckeye fans will not occupy 1/4 of the seats in your section.
On a more serious note, the fact that we let that many Buckeye fans in was absolutely disgraceful. I wish that it was possible to ban anyone who sold their ticket to an OSU fan from ever buying season tickets again. As I left the stadium, I heard one Buckeye fan remark that it felt like Columbus (which prompted my brother, who went to the game with me, to respond with some disparaging comments about OSU and Columbus in general, but that is beside the point).
November 21st, 2009 at 11:19 PM ^
whoops! typo! I meant 2011
November 21st, 2009 at 11:09 PM ^
Well then we had better start winning more than one conference game per season.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:58 PM ^
The only thing amazing to me is that so many people are SHOCKED and AMAZED that rules of economics apply to Michigan football games. When you feel less-than-enthused by the prospects of your team (the team you pay $125 - $500 per seat license PLUS ticket price) actually giving you enjoyment, your selling price will come down, thus making more tickets 'available' for resale. Yes, I used to get upset as a student when my friends would sell the OSU ticket and pay for their whole damn season's worth of tickets, but I understood it.
This was a game that i could not GIVE a ticket away to. No joke. I used up two seats, the whole time envying my cousin that got $500 for the pair of 10th row seats he sold. I enjoyed the $20 I spent on a 1/2 gal of sangria after the game more than any damn aspect of today's $130 investment of a game.
Expect much more red, and green, and scarlet in the years to come. I wonder what the season ticket renewal rate will be this year. I don't expect that we will stop having 100k plus attendances if for the only reason that opponent's fans will flock to our stadium to watch their team have a chance of kicking our ass.
That said, I will never sell tickets to opponent fans (actually I give them away to friends when I can't attend) or on websites. I will always keep my season tickets. But a lot of people need to come down from their perch and recognize the realities of our Michigan universe. (Especially with a state unemployment rate of 15%.)
And o-h-i-o was very loud, but not as embarrassing as what Michigan football has been for 2 years.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:08 PM ^
While this line of reasoning was evidently incorrect, I did think that season ticket holders would have a bit more loyalty than other fans in the area, as they are paying (arguably) inflated prices for the tickets in the first place.
Also, if I were going to sell tickets to opposing fans (which I would never do, but I can understand the reasons for doing so in this economy), I would sell ticket to multiple other games instead of my OSU ticket. Selling one's tickets should never be done in a way that would embarrass the team one is supporting. It's like a Tiger's fan selling ALCS Game 7 tickets to a Twins fan, only 50 times worse.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:48 PM ^
Why is it everyone says "I would understand in this economy selling all of your tickets...but I wouldn't do it?" You know what I can understand in this economy - not fucking buying season tickets if you need to rely on selling them as a source of income. If you are buying season tickets with the hope of selling them to get your money back, just do us a favor and don't buy them so the thousands of others on the season ticket waitlist can buy them. If you are so financially strapped you need to pimp out the university, scrap the football tickets and buy, oh I don't know, maybe something like food. OK, I am done with my rant. Continue with the discussion.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:47 AM ^
Love is beyond economics. You don't sell your wife into slavery because you are in a fight with her, and thus the utility of your marriage is low.
Are you a fucking cave-man? Do you not have free will? You are not slave to economic principles unless your brain is the size of a pea. We are more developed than that, as a species. Animals and molecules behave according to the "rules" of ecology/economy (basically the same thing: economy = ecology of money) ... which is to say, essentially, they follow the path of least resistance. True humans are beyond that.
And especially MICHIGAN fans! We are held to a higher standard, you fucking ape.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 AM ^
I can't quite recollect the location, but I believe my wife is in Azerbaijan at the moment as the result of a transaction brought about by a recent spat involving an unclosed milk carton, a 100-point decrease in our credit score, and a squabble over garbage duties.
Time-sharing a spouse was the best decision I've made since my prison-gang Pledge week.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 AM ^
are fucking nuts. Especially behavioral econ people that try and explain every human interaction with econ. "If you hold X, Y and Z constant (never the case) it really all boils down to transaction costs! Brilliant! Where's my tenure?"
Or, just use the word suboptimal a lot.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:15 AM ^
I heard on the radio today that Michigan offered ticket packages this year. You could buy Indiana-Delaware State-OSU or Notre Dame-Indiana-Delaware State.
It looks like a lot of the blame lies with the Athletic Department for scheduling Delaware State. They added a game that couldn't be sold without adding a larger enticement. Apparently a lot of OSU fans got their hands on these "package" tickets.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 AM ^
I doubt that was the case. If it were, we'd have had thousands of empty seats for all non-OSU games, and we didn't. It seems more likely that the culprit was ticketholders having no shame in selling their tickets to Buckeyes,
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 AM ^
I was there. THere was "some" red. But 95% of the crowd was UM. It was absolutely a home field advantage for us. Standing and cheering the entire game. While this wasn't just the sprinkling of red you might see when Indiana visits, it wasn't really different than any other OSU games over the years or games against ND, PSU, or MSU. Yeah, some of their fans were here. But WAAAY more of ours. (And by the way. I've been to Columbus. They sell us tix, too).
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 AM ^
Being there as well, I was shocked at the amount of red. Then when the cameras panned over the stadium and I looked at the video screen on the scoreboards, I was really shocked. With the exception of the student section, a good chunk of the stadium looked red. Keep in mind, this was the north endzone, and that wasn't even with the main batches of OSU fans included. Maybe red just stands out a lot better, but it certainly looked like more than 5% of the stadium was OSU fans.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 AM ^
other than the student section, it was about 1/3 OSU fans. No sugarcoat
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 AM ^
I just want to throw this out there.
I am a season ticket holder in Milwaukee, WI.
I can usually make it to about 3 or 4 games a year, and I have some connections up in AA to get rid of my tickets to M fans when I can't go.
I was planning on going all along (of course, duh, this is the greatest rivalry in all of sports!!!) but we just bought a house and close at the end of the month - something came up and I was tight for cash to still close, so I was left with no choice. (plus my fiancee hinted at her desire to chop my balls off if I left town for the weekend and didn't get anything packed)
In any case, as soon as I realized I couldn't go to the game I called all my connections and everyone was already going. I talked to my bro and he put them on ebay for me. I only gave him one condition - make sure they go to M fans. Didn't care about price or anything nearly as much as I did about them only going to M fans. Problem is you can only screen someone so much on ebay. I know the buyer lived in MI but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Anyways, I feel bad for selling my tix, but this was a unique situation for sure in my case. My buddy has 4 seats in front of and to the left of me. I'm going to ask him for a report on who was in my seats. I pray they were truly M fans, or I will never forgive myself, but what was I to do?
Any suggestions for guaranteed ways to make sure your tix are going to M fans in future is great. I don't ever plan on missing another M tosu game, but for other games as well. I am a huge fan and it sucks living 6 hours away (8 if chicago traffic is bad)
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 AM ^
are way off
First of all OSU only gets maybe 2,000 tickets to sell themselves, that accounts for the 7 or 8 sections of 10 rows at the top of the Southeast corner.
Michigan Stadium holds approximately 2,500 people per section, in my estimation you couldn't fill more than 2 or 3 sections full with OSU fans yesterday, that leaves the estimate at between 5000 and 7,500....and I think even that is an exaggeration.
It was not nearly as bad as MSU's crowd debacle vs the #1 Buckeyes in 2006.
It may be hard to believe but back around 1990 or 92 Michigan had a similar presence at the Shoe.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 AM ^
You, my friend, are drunk..
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:16 AM ^
Not that there's anything wrong with that.