So, last year I posted some analysis of the student attendance numbers over the years and provided some insight on that. Sadly, after graduation I won’t be able to see how the attendance looks game by game.
Only 1750 student season tickets were sold this year. For comparison, for 2013-14 and 2014-15, that number was significantly over 3000. For 2015-16, it was 2530.
I actually think it might help attendance. The major issue last season was the upper deck student section showing up to approximately zero games all year (I don’t necessarily blame them. Fix the Maize Rage). The general seating wasn’t even that bad. I hope the drop in student tickets has to do with the people last year who bought them and never showed up realizing that it was a waste and just not renewing it. Maybe the seats in that area will at least be moderately filled instead of the black hole of doom that it was.
Of course Michigan could do what UNC does and make all student tickets free, but revenue and stuff…
I think it’s just apathy about sports in general. Most students are even apathetic about football (tailgating/partying is the main event on Saturdays); tradition and expectation is what gets people to show up. For basketball where we lack that campus tradition, people just don’t care. The farther removed we are from elite seasons, the less interest there will be.
I get what you’re saying. Hopefully it does help in that respect. However our problems definitely did extend beyond upperdeck issues. Lower deck is about 1000. We only filled the lower deck in 5 out of the 10 games where all those seats were available to students.
Hopefully those seats get bought by normal fans, but I have seen some rumblings that normal sales are not going well either.
Football contending for the playoffs undoubtedly hurts when you compare how that’s going to the much tamer basketball expectations. Hopefully we have a solid year and get back some of the students.
Did anyone doubt moe can shoot? Sure he didn’t shoot well from deep a few chances last year but he didn’t play a lot and was over excited. His European tape showed he’s a good 3 point shooter. No doubt in my mind he could play the four if we needed him to. I hope we and he lets it rip this year. I really think getting him heavily involved is key to our success and one of the best ways for us to win. More maar/ moe less Walton and Irvin shot wise. I do not mean that as a knock on those two either. More as a confidence that the former getting a lot of touches is the best way to win cause theyre very good. I’d love to see moe getting isos on the post too. He’s shown he’s very crafty.
Nice article Dylan. And that Quinn article was good too. Zak’s play will go along way in determining team success, and a bunch of different outcomes seem reasonably likely.
Out of all of those games the only one I would assume to fill up seats is vs Vtech the rest are against crappy teams but it is concerning VTech is only at 878 and has not even reached 1000
I will be interested to see what it is for Texas probably over 1000 but who knows about 1750. They have 2 9pm starts against Howard and Texas which doesn’t help. This is what the past couple of years will do. Only seniors at Michigan have seen the basketball team have success and everybody but Irvin/Walton are left.
I agree that it’s a problem–that said, it’s hard to think of how the early schedule could have been set up worse, what with 2 games on Friday nights (1 at 9 p.m. local time), 1 at noon on a Sunday after a night football game that most will be watching the day before, 1 on the day of the BT Football Championship Game (at a time yet to be determined), and 1 over Thanksgiving break. The only early game at a time and date reasonably convenient for students is the VT game, which, while still significantly undersold, is the one with the highest response. I’ll be interested to see the response for the Texas game which is at a convenient time and a bit outside of the football vortex. It may depend on our start to the season…
That’s bizarre. He also chose Dana Altman as coach of the year. If Beilein gets this group to the Final Four there’s no way Dakich couldn’t pick him for COY, because it means we get what we expect out of the upperclassmen and Wilson, Watson, Wagner turn into studs down the stretch.