The Bigger House

Oct 30 06:41 UTC 1997

Well, the announcement appeared in the newspaper today. U-M plans to add 
4 rows of seats 3/4 of the way around the Big House, and 3 rows on the 
west side, to add about 5200 seats. This will bring official capacity up 
from about 102K to 107K. They had to give students split season tickets 
this year, and want to fix that, They also have a waiting list of 
several thousand long to get season tickets.

At least they aren't going to increase the capacity by redefining 
everyone's butt to be narrower, like last time. They are going to spent 
millions of $$ on this, and it should be ready by the beginning of 
the football season next year.

Spokesmen denied that the size of the stadium in Knoxville, TN, had 
anything to do with the decision. It currently seats 44 more people than 
Michigan Stadium.  The Big House will regain its #1 position with this 
move, however, by 5100+.

I wonder where they will park the extra cars.

response 2 of 11:

Oct 30 15:30 UTC 1997

They didn't *have* to not offer complete season tickets this year - what a
crock.  Squeezing out students is BS - the players are ostensibly fellow
students.  I know it's a big money deal, but that was a bad decision.

response 4 of 11:

Nov 4 20:26 UTC 1997

I didn't follow that Kevin. They didn't have enough seats for all the 
students. That sucks, but what should they have done?

oops. nice catch, Eric.

response 6 of 11:

Nov 8 22:10 UTC 1997

Yeah, they do pay more for tickets., but they didn't increase the number of
season tickets that they sold to the public. The reason for the shortage is
that the entire stadium was sold out (has been every year) and then the number
of students who wanted tickets increased.  They would have had to take season
tickets away from people who had them the previous year. 

I don't think greed was the cause of the problem. 

response 8 of 11:

Nov 11 04:24 UTC 1997

The problem with that is that once you get season tickets, the U wants to give
you priority over newer buyers. So they have been selling the same number of
season tickets for some time now, replacing only those buyers who decline
to renew. 

Another problem is that season tickets are sold to the general public in May,
and delivered in August. Yeah, they could do what you suggest at the last
mninute, but it sounds unfair to the ticketholders who would get turned away
from renewing, only tohave their tickets become available to the general
public.

response 10 of 11:

Nov 16 01:34 UTC 1997

I was kinda hopin that the U would just add 44, then each other year we will
add 1 more, and in the off years Tenessee adds 1, so we have a war to be part
of "The largest crowd witnessing a college football game in America this
afternoon".  Oh well, we'll get to continue our streak of 141 consecutive
100,000 plus crowds (that number will increase to 142 when Michigan hosts
Ohio State next week)