press releases

The athletic department this afternoon sent out a letter to season ticket holders for 2020 football and 2020-'21 basketball and hockey. The letter assures those who have purchased season tickets, or were considering doing so, that their purchases won't disappear into the ether if either season is canceled.

In that event season ticket holders would have the following options:

  1. A full refund (including preferred seat contributions)
  2. Transferring payments to the following season (again, PSD included)
  3. Changing what they paid to a donation to athletics (PSD included)

Since the 2021 football season (with MSU and OSU at home) is likely to be costlier than this year's Ball State-Arkansas State-Wisconsin-Penn State-Purdue-Maryland-Indiana slate note that you'd probably still be on the hook for the increase.

The letter also extended the deadline for ticket renewal to June 1. The upgrade and additions period was moved to a week after that, with those "if you want PSU you have to take two weak tickets off our hands" three-game packs bumped to July 7 and single-game sales moved to July 21. Basketball and hockey ticket dates were also moved forward a month.

The letter does not answer what would occur in the event of a shortened season, noting there are too many questions about that to come up with a coherent policy.

Clearly, the market for season tickets was not going anywhere during all of this. An acknowledgement of fan concerns, new deadlines, and some surety that payments will be honored was a necessary first step, however it's hard to see the market being anything close to normal times. It's still far too far out right now to predict whether sports can resume this fall, not to mention whether fans will feel safe attending them.

The entirety of the letter to season ticket holders can be found after the jump.



sure i guess i'll watch this [Bryan Fuller]

In news that is surely not to draw an unbelievable amount of attention, which is surely not the point in the first place, Michigan, the BTN, and Amazon have announced they've partnered for as-yet-unnamed documentary to be released for Prime members in January. Press release ahoy:

The University of Michigan, The Montag Group, Big Ten Network and Amazon have partnered on a behind-the-scenes documentary series about the 2017 Michigan football season that will be released on Amazon Prime in January 2018.

"We are proud to partner with Amazon Prime Video in documenting our University of Michigan student-athletes' daily experiences and the lifelong lessons learned both on the football field and in the classroom," said Michigan's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach Jim Harbaugh. "We welcome judgment! We embrace this opportunity to showcase our 2017 University of Michigan football team to a vast audience around the world."

"We think documenting this season will reveal that our university and football program are unique environments that equip our student-athletes for success in both academics and athletics," said Warde Manuel, U-M's Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "We are excited to work with great partners and to break new ground as the first collegiate program to participate in this digital space."

The series will chronicle the happenings of the 2017 season with exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage from college football's winningest program. The cameras will follow Harbaugh, assistant coaches and players throughout the entire season, including access to practice, the university's academic environment and a look into their lives off the field and in the Ann Arbor community.

The BTN has done excellent work with documentary-style shows like The Journey, and Amazon's All Or Nothing series chronicling NFL teams the past couple seasons have been of similar quality. Time to hit up your parents for that Prime password.

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[photo by Bryan Fuller]

C'est Poisson d'avril pour le mêlée printemps:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan football team will host its annual Spring Football Game presented by PNC Bank on the evening of Friday, April 1, from Michigan Stadium. The exact start time will be announced at a later date.

The spring game is free and open to the public.

The gates to the Big House will open one hour prior to the start of the game. Additional information will be forthcoming regarding parking, stadium entry locations, concessions and other activities for April 1.

The Wolverines will practice a total of 15 times during the spring, culminating with the first-ever spring game scrimmage in the evening. The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network.

The football team will conduct its first spring practice on Feb. 29 in Bradenton, Florida.

If dusk of it-was-still-March-yesterday sounds pretty chilly that's because it usually is, via Weather Underground:

image

It appears the idea is to get on TV in primetime. The Final Four games are Saturday so that's not a conflict. But Michigan's never come close to filling the stadium for this even on 70 degree days, and even last year's "it's actually a competition!" game was pretty boring once they'd emptied out Lloyd Carr's trick playbook.