Student Ticket Sales Aren't Going So Well
If you aren't already, get used to this, and I wouldn't blame the students.
In news that will come as a shock to many, charging students $295 for a home schedule in which the best game is against Penn State and the race for second is between Indiana, Minnesota, and Maryland doesn't go so well—especially a year removed from alienating much of the student fanbase with an unpopular, poorly implemented, and subsequently scrapped general admissions plan.
The deadline for renewing student tickets came and went on Tuesday, and in years past there's never, to my knowledge, been a need to extend the deadline. Student/poster bdsisme noted an email went out today urging some students to renew their tickets for the fifth time—in the three years prior, according to him, there'd been just four combined emails of that nature, which is consistent with how it was when I was in school ('06-'10)—and offering an extension to "Michigan Football SuperFans":
Dear [Student],
Thank you for being a Michigan Football SuperFan! According to our scanned data, you attended 5 or more home football games on-time last season (prior to or at kickoff). As a result, you have been granted SuperFan priority for the 2014 season.
Earlier this week (Tuesday, April 15) was the deadline to renew your season tickets for the 2014 season. However, since you have proven your loyalty this past season, we would like to offer a one-time extension of the season ticket renewal deadline in order for you to continue your devotion as a Michigan Football Superfan.
We know you are busy closing out the Spring semester and may have questions regarding the new seating policy for the 2014 season. By extending the renewal deadline to Friday, April 25, we hope you are now able to guarantee your seat as a Michigan Football Student Season Ticket Holder.
How magnanimous of them.
I went to the university of kentucky and even when they were a low level bowl team for a few years (sound familiar?) Their tickets were only 40 bucks for 8 home games.....hoMe games could include any combo of sec teams and also Louisville and the tix were still 5 per game for students. I know it's still uk football....but throw the students a bone. This year's schedule combined with the recent performance of michigan football can't possibly surpass 150 per student package.
I take it these are not tickets for a seat in a suite with a stocked liquor cabinet and HD TVs?
that price is boggling. i want to say it was $20 per game from '04-'08 or so? it's amazing how fucked up the relationship between the students and AD has gotten since then.
amazing and depressing.
there's a real potential for long-term damage of the brand here. It's not like some other schools didn't once have proud traditions, however much our own blinds us. As with Appy State, merely beating bad foes will not remove the monkey from Michigan's back. It gets to be a situation where people say the word Michigan and then all shake their heads; once this becomes reflex. . . little harder to recover. Brady Hoke is a good guy, but inspiring?
Geez.
If attending five games in a year earns you the title of "Michigan Football Superfan," what title is he doling out to the now shat-upon plebes that have been season ticket holders for decades?
suckers?
I must be one of the few who can't stand watching Michigan football games on TV. Being there is always infinitely better for not having to listen to announcers who don't know anything and being able to yell without fear of my wife reminding me other people live within 1000 feet of us.
But I paid way more than 300 bucks to see these games so I'd take a few tickets at that price point.
...a good sports bar is for. Enough noise to drown out the stupid annoucers and you're still welcome to scream yourself horse if you wish...with the added bonus of food & drink delivered upon demand.
That number has been fictional for a long time, at least by turnstile count.
Live sports attendance is under all kinds of pressure. The cost and hassles of attending go up every year, while the cost and hassles of watching in ever better quality at home go down.
Having 109,000 seats is a major source of pride, but it's also outdated. There's a reason (outside of Jerry Jones) they don't build NFL stadiums that big, and ballparks and arenas have frequently gone down in size over the last 20 years.
Brandon is pursuing every last nickel of revenue, that he doesn't need, while alienating fans with his "wow factors," and a crappy schedule, all while the team is struggling.
I opted not to renew after having had tickets since 1990 this year. I'm an out of towner who comes in once or twice a year, but I kept the tickets because I always wanted to be able to go to the big game. I sold off the rest on Stub Hub.
Well last year the Notre Dame game cost well north of $300 per ticket because virtually everything else was worth well below face, and even Ohio State only nominally above face. No more. If I want to go to the PSU game this year, I'm pretty confident I can get in for less than $300.
There is absolutely no way. You may have heard that there were a couple of subpar seasons at the end of the previous decade and attendance remained as strong as ever.
sounds hopeful. Right on, Brother.
I used to have to hold as extras. I guess one fans' cloud is strormy and anothers has a silver lining perfect. Slim that student section way down.
Does anyone have a history of ticket prices over the past 20 years or so? Just curious - I have no idea how much I paid in the early-mid 90s.
I can't remember specifically, but I seem to recall paying something right around $100 for student season tickets in 2007. (The numbers $86 and $105 stick in my head by not sure if either is correct).
But that was before quantitative easing. /s
Just went and found a stack of my old ticket stubs. Can't find a lot of mine from the years in between (and I was in the band for a good stretch of it), but per game:
2002: $18.50
2004: $20.50
2011: $30
Go figure.
Richard: yeah, they're called doctors
sure does SUCK. Way to go Dave.
Could this get DB fired if he sales stay low? I know Brandon doesn't consider the students to be a part of the same institution that he runs, but surely the president and some regents do.
We really need to move on from this guy. He's been a disaster for morale.
IF revenue is affected a lot of things suddenly will be up for review. Money talks. UM football is the cash cow for the athletic department.
That said I still think there is a hefty waiting list for normal tickets, so worst case they reduce the size of student section and expand the regular seats. But who knows what sort of apathy the product on the field has produced in the regular section. I don't think it would be an issue anytime soon but if this sort of mediocre on field product continues for 4-5 years yes we will have issues.
Is there really a waiting list? I assumed there wasn't based on all of the "Buy two games" ticket package emails I received last year.
Pretty sure Brian posted last year that everyone who was on the waiting list had an opportunity to purchase tickets, ie - no more waiting list. As some of the posters who have been season tickets but decided not to renew have posted, they too have received emails indicating UM is extending the deadline to renew season tickets. That tells me the waiting list for season tickets is 0. If there were a waiting list the AD wouldn't be extending the deadline to renew season tickets, they'd just start offering the season tickets to the people on the waiting list.
The problem is, Michigan athletics is tied to a university. It operates in a tax-free shelter. Operating by the standard Corporate America bottom line rules is extremely unethical. Pissing off the students should mean something beyond money.
Isn't this where the change in non-student ticket policy comes back to bite them (based on donations rather than waiting list).
In the old days, when season tickets were based on a 7+ year waiting list, there is no way you would cancel your season tickets even if that season or a couple of seasons were going to be crappy because you would not be able to get the tickets back for close to a decade.
But now that they are based on donation amount, what is to stop people from canceling this year, knowing that they have enough donation credits built up to just buy season tickets next year when the schedule is better.
Seems like the new policy makes the ability to cancel/re-up much easier and really hurts the sales in off years such as this.
Or am I missing something about the priority list/buying process?
Back in the (my) day, tickets sold themselves for a meager $75 for the season. We packed them in like sardines and there were never any empty seats. Two things need to happen: 1) prices need to go back to a realistic place. $295 my ass. 2) we need to play exciting football again which means a) the conference needs to get better (see Big Ten basketball) and b) we need to get better.
I know I'll get lambasted for this, but our fanbase bitches more than any in the country, I'd bet. Our team sucks, our schedules sucks, our athletic director sucks. You know what? Our fans suck. I used to rip on the West Coast fans when I moved out here because of how fair weather they all were. Now I see my team is just as bad.
I had the exact same feeling re: West Coast fans when I moved to LA in 2001. Maybe it is because I have been on the West Coast for so long now or because I am older, but I view our (UM's) fans differently than I did when I first graduated. When I have gone back for games I thought UM fans were fair weathery
And if I want an In-n-Out Double-Double Animal Style, I have to take a plane, hotel rooms, and everything else that goes along with it.
Your point?
When I was a student - not that long ago - tickets were $115 / yr.
Oh - and one suggestion. Let students sell their tickets without validation. Why the hell shouldn't they be able to recover the cost if they so wish? Used to be that way when I was in school.
I got this email earlier and find it quite amusing that the AD thinks they can still entice me to buy tickets at this point. I first got here in '09 and am now a grad student, and all of the factors everyone is mentioning went into my decision to not buy season tickets. In '09 a student season ticket was $200. That's a 50% increase in half a decade. Ridiculous. The general admission thing was a complete fiasco and I simply don't trust the AD after all these spontaneous rule changes. And quite frankly the team has been awful the past two years. To think, I consider myself extremely lucky to have seen ONE win over OSU and ONE win over MSU in the time i've been here. The biggest factor though is probably the schedule. The marquee game is PSU? How thrilling. I do love going to the games though, so I would still have gotten tickets if it weren't for the fact that I know I'll be able to pick up a ticket for each game from another student for practically nothing at all.
I found this from 2001
Tickets were raised across the board- student tickets went UP from $13.50 to $17.50 a game. Prices had not been raised since 1996. So as recently as 2000 student prices were $13.50 or for a 7 game set = $94.50
That jumped to $122.50 in 2001
Today's equivalent is $42.14 for a 7 game set
That's a $200 price increase since 2000.... ~$28.50 per game.
Inflation baby?
Don't worry TItle 9 called and said to raise prices on women's sports for equality.
I'm gonna laugh so hard when we win a bunch of games this year, and all the entitled whiners who cancelled their season tickets are clamoring to get them back, and can't. This board represents a particularly fanatic, yet unrealistic, section of the fanbase whose opinions do not reflect Michigan fans as a whole.
Speaking forone of the group you hope to laugh at I can honestly say I 100% hope you get that chance. Nothing would please me more as an alum to have this team kick ass and go undefeated this year. I would be thrilled beyond belief to have the stands full to capacity and the long waiting list ofr season tickets restored due to the excellent product coach Hoke and company put on the field in 2014.
Here's to your wish coming true.
Honestly, I don't "expect" any better than what we've gotten, unlike many of the other posters here who are still convinced that this is just a temporary down period. Personally, I am quite used to Michigan football being crap. My sports conciousness dates back to the 2001 season. U-M has gone 2-11 in The Game since then. In the five years I've been a student here I've watched Sparty win the Big Ten twice and even win the Rose Bowl. Like MGrowOld, nothing would make me happier than to see U-M go undefeated. Even on the miniscually small chance that did happen though, the legendary games wouldn't be the ones being played at Michigan Stadium. The home slate is crap. The point is, I'm not willing to shell out $300 to watch a likely bad U-M team play a bunch of other bad teams.
I'm well aware of that. That's the way it was then. This is the way it is now. It might change soon. It might not. My point is that I don't expect the team to be any better than it is.
April 21st, 2014 at 10:00 AM ^
Rather, he is a business school automaton who knows all about the technical aspects of a corporation, but little or nothing about how to actually run a business and not a corporation.
A good businessman would not have schedule Appy State, permitted this absurdly unbalanced schedule with MSU and OSU, and continued to gouge the fans despite the program bathing in a sea of mediocrity. If Michigan athletics were a comic book Canham would be Superman and Brandon Bizarro Superman.
Another suggestion - TV timeouts are killing the game. I'd rather grab a cold one during the five minutes breaks. It's getting way out of hand.
I think Brian Cook would agree with you.
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