Michigan Football Official (MGoBlue) Ticket Sales/Pricing Structure

I have been watching our official ticket sales on MGoBlue.com since single tickets went on sale to the general public a little over a month ago and a few things have stuck out as odd and/or noteworthy to me that I figured I may as well update the board with during a week of little news (due to the submarine effect #TheHarbaughDifference). 

*Note: I will refer to "only scattered single seats remain" as sellouts. I know they are technically different, but just marginally so and only rarely will people purchase one seat alone at a football game. Pricing comments/criticisms only apply to single game tickets, not season tickets.

First of all, one of the very few errors Hackett may be charged with at this time is overpricing the BYU game. The floor price for this game is $80 (plus a $4 service fee). I am not sure why, but the BYU game was set as more expensive than UNLV ($55), Rutgers ($65), and a homecoming game vs. Northwestern ($75). The fact that these three games are nearly sold out (yes, even UNLV is approaching sell out status), but BYU still has over 3,000 tickets for sale (that have been stagnant for weeks) clearly shows that Hackett overestimated fan enthusiasm for this opponent. The AD may have to gift away large quantities of these seats as current endzone stubhub prices are about $70 and, unfortunately, I think it's more likely Stubhub prices will fall as the game approaches rather than rise (unless we handily beat Utah and steamroll OSU (NTOSU) and UNLV, but even then they may just stay constant). That said, if you're looking for low row tickets to this game (Section 33) MGoBlue is still your best bet!

Secondly, there is a mystery to be solved. On July 13th, Michigan Football tweeted that only scattered single seats remained for Oregon State, Northwestern and Rutgers. Link: https://twitter.com/umichfootball/status/620596929748058114. For the next few weeks indeed MGoBlue listed the games as "Only Single Tickets Available" and I had checked the map to confirm that. However, suddenly, without any announcement from U of M, there are now limited tickets available to these three games, throughout the stadium, that are not single seats. Initially, I figured that this must be due to visiting fans not claiming all of their university alotted tickets. However, these tickets are not concentrated in the visiting sections. Does anyone know what could be the possible reason for this?

General ticketing issues: I think that Hackett overpriced single ticket endzone seats (for games other than OSU and MSU) and underpriced single ticket sideline seats (for all games). The athletic department definitely should be charging more than $115 for 50 yard line tickets to the Ohio State game (stubhub market value for these is about $400 a ticket).  That enormous gap between face and market value encourages people to buy tickets without any intent of going and when they flip these tickets they end up disproportionately in the hands of our opponents.

On the other hand, endzone single tickets are much too high for most games. Consider this startling example: It was cheaper this year to buy a ticket in Row 1 Section 1, next to the tunnel on the 50 yard line, against UNLV ($75) than it was to buy a ticket in Row 96 of the endzone against BYU ($80). That is blatantly bad pricing.

I think that in the future, row levels should matter for single game tickets (currently row 1 is the same price as row 96). The problem with having undervalued low row tickets and overvalued high row tickets is that the AD misses out on revenue from the low rows while the high row endzone tickets fail to sell as the same tickets are often cheaper on stubhub.

Lastly, many of these issues would be resolved if student ticket sales rebounded to normal levels (yes, even with Harbaugh they are still lower than the past standard). It looks like about 90% of unsold single tickets are in Sections 32 and 33, historically part of the student section. The AD doesn't give regular season ticket holders seats in these sections to hold room for students, but when the students don't buy them, they become difficult to sell as they are in a part of the stadium with lower demand (and currently overpriced). The 2/3rds of section 33 that are not the student section is almost entirely unsold for the BYU game (even as low as row 20) and without giving away tickets it will be an unsightly gap of unfilled bleachers on gameday. 

All that said, we are still incredibly lucky to routinely fill the largest stadium in the country (aka these aren't the worst problems to have). 

Let me know your thoughts!