Is this the time to reduce capacity to increase spacing and comfort
Personally, I care less and less every year about the record for largest crowd. I am not a "down in front" fan, and have enjoyed the increased volume and energy level in the stadium since the renovations, but the 8" or so it feels like each fan is allotted makes the experience less enjoyable to me for the couple of games I make each year.
Where do you stand? Would you be willing to drop the attendance to 90-95,000 and actually be able to watch the game without having to stand slightly askew and still have your shoulders touching 6 people, or am I just getting older and wider?
My biggest problem is with how close the rows are, but that's because I'm 6'6" and skinny. I hate having my knees in someone else's back the whole time we're sitting, and blocking the person behind me's view every time we stand up.
That said, we're already running out of things to puff our chests out about, can we really afford to lose another one?
My problem is the fatties. Grow a smaller ass. The seats aren't getting smaller over time.
When I was a yung'n the sign outside the Stadium stated a certain occupancy, and that number remained unchanged I believe from at least 1969 through the entire duration of the 10-year War. Not sure when it changed?
Any oldsters or UM football history buffs may recall that number. If they actually allowed that many ppl in it might be more comfortable!
That number keeps us above the grail of 100,000, but didn't used to make access, egress, restroom lines and even just sitting feel so overcrowded (I've seen attendances well above 110,000, and even 115,000 on occasion declared).
Who remembers the classic occupancy? It was very binary
It was 101,001 from mid 50s to the mid 70s, then it went up to 101,701 til 92 when it went up to 102,501. In 98 it went up to 107,501. I'm assuming you can take it from there.
Hey, It's the Midwest.
Do both! Slim the capacity down to make it more comfortable and still call it 100k people. The number is fake anyway
"I'll be the challenger."
"Hey, who's the weird new guy?"
"I think he's ThePonyConquerer's cousin."
(Both look towards me as I'm doing some weird, strange stuff)
"Ah, that makes sense."
I like this idea. Eliminate some rows, increase seat width to 24", and just reduce the announced attendance by 500. It's arbitrary and fake [news] anyway, and lying about sh.t is the norm, now.
Not even /s.
EDIT: This was in response to the previous post (by sarto1g); not sure how it ended up here.
Increase seat size by roughly 200% but only reduce the announced attendance by 500? The university would probably only be able to sell roughly 70k tickets if the seats were 2 feet wide.
Have you ever been to Michigan Stadium? How do you “eliminate some rows”?
Technically you could remove bleachers from a row or two, but what you’re suggesting is more leg room by eliminating rows. That would be a MASSIVE undertaking - if it’s even possible...
Exactly. Reduce 10,000 seats in the bowl, add 10,000 in the press box.
Yeah but to get real comfort, we would have to increase in linear bench footage dramatically to stay above 100k.
let’s assume average seat size is 18”.
18 x 106000 = 1,908,000
even increasing seat size by just 2 inches gets you:
1908000 / 20 = 95,400
thats a hell of a decrease. Getting up to 24” per seat?
190800/24= 79500
thats some serious expansion needed
Greed won't allow them to reduce the capacity. They will puff out their chest and scream about the biggest stadium in the land, but it's all about the benjamins.
Would be a heck of a project for them to complete, but I believe something will be done eventually. I think the stadium would lose far more than 7-12K seats though.
I’m rounding off to make the math simple, but take 50 sections times 100 rows. That’s 5000 rows in the stadium. If you removed 1 seat per row, capacity would still be >100k. But would anyone notice the extra inch of width?
Michigan wants that 107,601 so we can claim to be the biggest stadium in the country, but how many games do we really need that many seats for? You could even solve the Ohio State problem of them overtaking the stadium by not selling them so many tickets.
The Rose Bowl used to be ~100k. They dropped capacity by around 10k.
Maybe it's just me, but I personally like the flaws in Michigan stadium and the experience that other fans seem to hate. I like being squished with others, I like the bench seats and I like that it's not like sitting in a baseball stadium. When stuff goes down on the field, I think it makes it more fun. If you want those kind of seats, the club seats give you that experience.
To each their own. I hate touching or being touched by other people unless it's my wife, kids, or close friends.
So, I opt to watch at home 99% of the time. I'll go up there for an occasional game, but am content to enjoy most of them in my palatial doublewide.
And I don’t like anybody touching my stuff, so just keep your meat hooks off! If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you!
-Psycho “Don’t call me Francis” Sawyer
Boomshakalaka, you got it.
IMO, you’re getting older and wider.
For obvious reasons, some spacing might be in order this fall. Whenever it’s safe I’d love to see the stadium back to bursting at the seams.
I know the numbers aren't quite this simple (vendors and ushers are counted in attendance, luxury boxes wouldn't apply, etc), but let's use them as a baseline. I'm pretty sure the standard Michigan Stadium seat is 14" wide. Each inch added from that point would be approximately a 7% increase and would have an approximately proportional decrease in stadium capacity. So if we went to 16" wide seats the capacity would be just over 90,000. I know ~2" of extra leg room on a plane (economy comfort) is pretty noticeable, but not sure how much more comfortable 2" more width would make sitting on an aluminum bench for 4 hours.
In general, as the competition for in person vs watching at home rages on I wouldn't be surprised if schools start to use this kind of strategy to reduce capacity and increase stadium experience through more space.
Make upper decks at the endzones, keep it at 100,000 or whatever but more spread out.
Or just reduce capacity.
At the rate it's trending...perhaps they wait until August to decide. After all the protests we shall see in a week or so if we are screwed. If hundreds of thousands across big cities can stand arm in arm for more than a week, viral load, contact, proximity are established...doesn't hurt to have a plan and if they mean students only then so be it.
Okay conspiracy guy.
Sure I would. But I’m just some guy with no say in the matter. The question is does the university and AD want to drop attendance. You know, the folks who actually make the decisions on that. And fuck no they don’t want to. They’d pack 130,000 into those current seats if they could and it wasn’t a fire hazard.
At the end of the day, it’s all about money. All it’s ever been about, and all it ever will be about.
Never gonna happen.
Curious why you think that.. is it because UM has THE Largest stadium capacity anywhere? OSU dropped theirs from roughly 105K to 103K, mostly for stadium maintenance and removing seats with obstructed views.
Having lived in AA for 5 years, working for a company with tickets, I've been to many, many UM games. The seats are not comfortable, at all (neither are OSU's to be fair). I'm all for reducing capacity if it makes the experience more comfortable.
The capacity has already been reduced. Rows were slightly widened recently and the capacity was reduced from 109,901 to 107,601
You should be standing for most of the game. That’s the damn problem here, we’re focusing on how to make the seats more comfortable when people shouldn’t be sitting down unless there’s a tv timeout or it’s halftime.
Well there are a lot of TV timeouts
There should be no problem if the games coincide with a protest march.
Nailed it
I’m not big on attending sports to begin with. I’m a pretty big guy, 6’3”, 260 pounds. Sitting in stadiums is usually a distracting experience in discomfort. I’ll go to the bathroom or concessions just to stretch out and walk around a bit (maybe designed that way to maximize concession money? Lol). And at that point, why did I pay $30-$100 to see this professional or college game?
My best experiences have been at soccer games. DCFC doesn’t have assigned seats. One side is for the “ultras” - people that want to stand the whole time and yell and cheer and chant - and it’s an engaging interactive experience. On the other side is your family atmosphere, people sitting down except for big moments. I’ve sat on both sides and loved it. I’ve never felt uncomfortable and definitely get my money’s worth.
MLS game experience is great. I generally just find less assholes go to MLS games (even when attendance is high) and it still gets loud.
I guess "assholes"are football fans, not futbol fans?
Totally agree. the DCFC is a terrific experience. Good food and beer too. Hope they restart in August as planned. .. parking at nearby Hamtramck Stadium is easy/safe. I didn't know it was one of a handful of Negro League Parks (where some future16 HOFers played during segregated baseball) still "standing" until Jack White had a fundraiser game there.
Having the biggest stadium is a recruiting draw. I don't see any need to reduce capacity for fan comfort. If fans get fed up with the crowding, they'll stop attending games and the problem will resolve itself.
Haven't they already stopped attending? Outside of major rivalry games, almost all attendance figures (for any team) are fluffed.
If they had stopped attending, we wouldn't see people complaining about how crowded it is in the stadium.
"Nobody goes there anymore--it's too crowded."
-- Yogi Berra
One of my favorites. My brother uncorks that one on a recurring basis.
Yes, I am tired of being smashed in there and having to sit through so many commercials. I'm about maxed out on what I'm willing to pay though after spending $150 to see OSU kick our ass again. I wouldn't go back without a massive price decrease or someone gives them to me.
Why do you even go to games if you’re that miserable?
It's like self flagellation without the tools.
I don't mind it so bad but that's because the people around me (front, back and sides) are pretty much the same every single week. So you get to know one another and it's a much less awkward experience.
At this point, you have to keep it the biggest stadium...it's a big part of the brand (e.g. The Big House). If you can widen seats and maintain that status, then yes, but only if you retain the claim to the biggest stadium in the nation.
Go to 25,000 private cabanas, with butler service.
Yes, make the seats wider, eliminate 10% of the rows, but then follow MGoUser 42_Pineapples' concept to add new seats by expanding The Big House.
https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/what-if-michigan-stadium-was-bigger-my-concept-made-minecraft
In the process, increase capacity to somewhere between 115-120 thousand to keep the attendance crown going forward, while finally giving us enough space for comfort.
It is kind of ridiculous how they smash people together to maintain a record. It's particularly hard on older people and those who are larger than normal. That some other fans don't care about the comfort of everyone tells you a lot about how some people in our country prioritize their own needs over everyone else's.
Increasing the distance between rows would be an extremely difficult undertaking--it would require tearing out all of the benches, tearing out the concrete, doing a new concrete pour, and re-installing the benches. That sort of labor is a little more expensive now than it was in the 1920s. Maybe they could do 2 or 3 sections each summer for a couple of decades.
Yeah the athletic program and university have zero money laying around.