M Alumni Assoc Cancels Football Saturdays Ticket Program
That's too bad. The seats were never very good, but the price and availability were predictable.
This is how I was able to purchase tickets to the first night game at Michgan Stadium (I won't call it by the stupid Dave Brandon monicker). Sorry to see it go.
"However, what we've seen over the past few seasons is that with the rise of other ticket purchasing choices, such as StubHub, our Football Saturdays program is not exclusive anymore and the demand for our tickets has declined dramatically."
I find it hard to believe that they think ticket sales have dropped because of StubHub and not because of the on-the-field product.
This was the best way for someone who wasn't a big time donor to get tickets for big games at face value - I used it pretty much every year to get an extra pair of MSU/OSU/ND tickets even though they weren't great seats. Calling Michigan Athletics will not get you a ticket to one fo those games, at least not without a package deal.
On the same note, I am sure they had a hard time selling those FCS and MAC tickets. Probably bettter off giving the seats back to the AD and selling them as season tickets.
It never did get you away tickets, though.
This is a big hit to the value of the alumni association
I mean, now they offer you some events in big cities, a window sticker, access to a UMich email address and? I'm not one of those who craps on the AA for allowing non-alums in, but I don't see why people would join without more tangible benefits.
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Do they at least have to attend the university?
I'm just a fan, but that is ridiculous. The alumni association should exclusively be for the alumni.
It has been that way since I worked there while attending UM in the early 2000's. Same price, too. The alumni association is basically a AAA type of organization that offers a series of benefits for a fee that usually exceeds the value of the benefits.
There was even a groupon for half off membership. While not Dave Brandon's idea, it did seem Brandonesque at the time.
Penn State has a similar philosophy of letting friends of the University join the alumni association.
Ours is a more traditional approach, per the alumni website, we limit members to:
Individuals who have earned associate, bachelor, graduate, professional, or honorary degrees from Ohio State, as well as medical resident graduates of the university.
I know of several other schools, including UCLA, that operate on the same model as Michigan.
I don't see the problem with it as it's a voluntary fundraising organization, more or less. I also don't understand why you would exclude former students who did not graduate as they are often on fundraising rolls and should get something in exchange for the cash calls.
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The university should just absorb them and create a new membership model. It's ridiculous that anyone can become a member if they pay a membership. If it's an ALUMNI association, it should be only for ALUMNI. Also, membership to the overall organization should be free, with due being paid to your local club so they can organize events. There is no value to the alumni association as far as I can tell. The Clubs are the main drivers of their value.
I am totally bummed about this and yes this is one of the main reasons I invested in a Lifetime membership. I am a season ticket holder and have always used this program to get additional tickets to the home games that other friends and family wanted to attend. I can't imagine there's a benefit the AA provides that is/was used more consistently and by more people than the Football Saturdays program. How many people could possibly be using the job board or the True Blue travel program each and every year?
Also I cannot believe he said the demand for tickets has declined. First off, isn't there a waitlist again now? Demand is not declining for Michigan Football. Second, for all but the garbage can games, I cannot imagine StubHub prices will ever beat Face Value as long as Jimmy is at the helm.
His point about exclusivity probably means they are seeing a lot of these tickets resold on StubHub. Probably true, however, IMO not a reason to cancel the program. Every ticket in the stadium could potentially be sold on StubHub! No different for the AAUM tickets, it's just a fact of life. And by the way, the Athletic Department ENDORSES THE USE OF STUBHUB!! Unless they ended that relationship and I missed it.
So to me the justifications given for canceling are total horseshit.
But I think what you call the "garbage can games" were kind of part of the package. If I remember from over a decade ago, people would list their preference for games and the more games you were willing to pay for, the greater the chance that you would get OSU/MSU/ND tickets as well. So some people were paying face value for shitty seats to some of the lower profile games in order to get big game tickets.
StubHub has destroyed the market for those games by giving a real look at the value of the ticket. People aren't filling out forms and paying $50 when the same seats are online for $20 within a couple of clicks and you know exactly what you are getting.
The most recent model was this: The form was online only. You entered your preferred games in order of preference. They did not package the OSU tickets with other games anymore. It was simply done as a lottery. All entries had to be submitted by a certain date and then they did a random drawing from there. (At least, so they said.)
Even without a likelihood or guarantee of getting an OSU or MSU ticket, you could still get a good Big Ten game at face value, which is not always easy, or possible, on StubHub. One of my issues is also that I get a group of six tickets together, which is much harder to do on StubHub. Lastly, it was used as a pre-sale service. You did not have to sign on to mgoblue.com with the rest of the public when tickets went on sale.
They are making an obviously bogus claim that they are discontinuing the program because it's no longer "exclusive." They offered something (as explained above) that is not available to the gernal public. They have not explained the real reason, so I don't know what it is.
My best guess would be that they have to buy a certain amount of tickets from the Athletic Department and then they eat the cost of whatever they can't sell. They probaby were not able to sell out their crap game tickets and were losing money. And with a season coming up with no ND, no MSU, no OSU, and no night game, there probably weren't going to be a lot of people even looking for any kind of ticket.
I have sent them an email expressing my displeasure. I hope there is enough outrage that they will reverse course. Judging by the lack of comments on this thread, I'm not optimistic.
Here is what this actually means. The school had a hard time selling tickets to the non-conference games so in order to sell more of those tickets, you had to buy them in order to get tickets to the good games. They figured out that they are going to make more money by selling the good games directly on Stubhub then they currently do by offering the Football Saturdays program.
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Yes, so this is now the bottom line question: Being an alum or belonging to the Alumni Association gets you no advantage at all for Football tickets? None at all?
That seems like a big deal, and a mistake.
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