How Michigan's Greed Alienated Fans: A Cautionary Tale For All College Football. This spring, the Michigan athletic department admitted what many had long suspected: Student football ticket sales are down, way down, from about 2. All real problems, to be sure, but they don't explain how Michigan alienated 4. November 2016: Preferred Seat Donation renewal mailed: December 31, 2016: Deadline to transfer football season tickets: January 31, 2017: Preferred Seat Donation.
How did Michigan do it? By forgetting why we love college football. The Students Are The Future. Dave Brandon, the former Domino's Pizza CEO- turned- Michigan athletic director, has often cited the difficulty of using cell phones at Michigan Stadium as . Being able to sit with their friends. Instead of seating the students by class - - with the freshmen in the end zone and the seniors toward the 5. The Illinois Football team entered the 2016 season not knowing what they had. They discovered they had a great running back in Kendrick Foster. NCAA College Football tickets for 2017 2018 NCAA College Football at Front Row Tickets. NCAA College Football schedule & interactive seating charts. Michigan had done for decades - - last year it was first come, first served. If you wanted to sit together, you had to walk in together. Thousands of students responded by not coming at all. Now, with the student section still half empty at kickoff, they don't show any. Working with student government leaders, the athletic department revised the policy for the 2. But it was apparently too little, too late, as some 6,0. Michigan students decided to drop their tickets for 2. Perhaps they should stop charging six bucks for a hot dog, five bucks for popcorn and four dollars for water. Maybe they shouldn't make their paying customers wait 2. Because just about every major college game is televised, ticket holders have to endure about twenty commercial breaks per game, plus halftime. I'm amazed how eagerly universities have sold their souls to TV. It wasn't always this way. Michigan's legendary coach, Bo Schembechler, often said, . If you want to televise it, fine. If you don't, that's fine too. For years, TV was dying for a night game at the Big House. But nobody likes waiting for TV to decide when your favorite team is going to play that week - - especially fans flying in from far away. TV doesn't make spectators at the Indy 5. Masters or the World Cup wait for their ads - - yet those events still make billions. If the TV whizzes can't figure out how to make a buck on football without ruining the experience for paying customers, those fans will figure it out for themselves, and stay home. To its credit, Michigan doesn't show paid advertisements, but the ads it does show - - to get fans to host their weddings at the 5. Michigan fans find just as annoying. Americans are bombarded by ads, about 5,0. Michigan Stadium used to be a sanctuary from modern marketing, an urban version of a National Park. Now it's just another stop on the sales train. Everything the ticket holders spend hundreds of dollars to wait for and pay for, they can get at home for next to nothing – including the ads - - plus better replays. They can only get the marching band at the Big House. Survey after survey points the finger for lower attendance not at cell phone service or HDTV, but squarely at the decisions of athletic departments nationwide. Fans are fed up paying steakhouse prices for junk food opponents, while enduring endless promotions. The more college football indulges the TV audience, the more fans paying to sit in those seats feel like suckers. The proof is the wait list, which former athletic director Don Canham grew by the thousands. Canham was a multi- millionaire businessman in his own right. But he didn't, because he believed that would dispel the magic of Michigan Stadium. Even then, the PSL program was relatively moderate, he spared the fans in the endzones, and he lowered ticket prices after the 2. Even after the team finished 3- 9 in 2. Michigan's wait list remained robust. You're not there to ring up the cash to the nth degree. It's a nonprofit model! That does not include the building program, most recently estimated at $3. In Brandon's defense, he has generated a $5 million surplus (down from $9 million a year ago) and the buildings will benefit all Michigan's teams, not just football and basketball. But his budget also includes his $1 million salary, almost three times what Bill Martin paid himself - - and yes, the AD does pay himself - - plus Brandon's $3. Perhaps Michigan's rowing team would have to make do with a $2. Maybe Michigan head coach Brady Hoke would have to get by on $2 million a year, instead of $4 million. Perhaps Brandon might just have to feed his family on $3. It would be worth it if, in the bargain, the university get its soul back. How long can these numbers, fueled by increasingly unhappy fans, continue to skyrocket before they come crashing down to earth? Tickets used to be underpriced, and you knew that when you scalped them for more than you paid. Now they're overpriced, and you know that when you try to sell them through Michigan's Official Scalper, Stub. Hub, and get far less. The wait list is long gone. The department has been sending wave after wave of emails to former ticket holders, retired faculty members and even rival fans to assure them, . The college football world should take note. Michigan boasts the most living alumni in the world, roughly 5. Ohio State's. They are the coalminers. The people who run college football should take note. Who The Fans Are, And What They Want. Michigan's biggest problem is not knowing who its customers are, what they're like and what they want. Quite the opposite, they think Michigan football games are the antidote for the artificial excess of the Super Bowl - - as do most college football fans. This tells us a basic truth: Michigan football fans don't just love football. They love Michigan football - - the history, the traditions, the rituals - - the timeless elements that have grown organically over decades. They are attracted to the belief that Michigan football is based on ideals that go beyond the field, do not fade with time, and are passed down to the next generation - - the very qualities that separate a game at the Big House from the Super Bowl. That's a pretty powerful message about what Michigan is all about, and that's our job to send that message.? Fly- overs, blaring rock music and Beyonce? Beyonce is to Michigan football what Bo Schembechler is to - - well, Beyonce. No, Michigan is all about lifelong fans who've been coming together for decades to leave a bit of the modern world behind - - and the incessant marketing that comes with it - - and share an authentic experience fueled by the passion of the team, the band and the students. If the people running college football see their universities as just a brand, and the athletic departments merely a business, they will turn off the very people who've been coming to their temples for decades. Athletic directors need to remember the people in the stands are not customers. Break faith with your flock, and you will not get them back with fancier wine. Now it's something they hoard. Anything of value they put a price tag on. Anything that appeals to anyone is kept locked away - - literally, in some cases - - and only brought out if you pay for it. And what's been permanently banished is any sense of generosity. Bacon is the author, most recently, of Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football, a New York Times bestseller. He gives weekly commentary on Michigan Radio, teaches at the University of Michigan and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, and speaks nationwide on leadership and diversity. Learn more at John. UBacon. com, and follow him on Twitter @johnubacon. College Football, Football, Hall of Fame, Michigan Wolverines, NCAAF. NCAA College Football Tickets.
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