Fun in the shade
I am a few days behind on writing about this story, but you know I wasn't going to ignore it. Major renovations are under way at the Big House. The Michigan Regents recently approved (Dollar) Bill Martin's plan to add "enclosed seating" to the east and west sides of the stadium. The renovation will essentially reduce the number of seats in the main stadium (to widen the seats and aisles) while adding an equal number of club and enclosed seats so that there is no capacity loss at a cost of over $200 million.
Adding luxury boxes to the Big House is so controversial in Michigan sports land that Dollar Bill won't even refer to them by that name. Successfully adding the boxes will bring in a substantial amount of additional cash to the Michigan athletic department each year, but is the cost really worth it? $200 million seems excessive.
The Detroit Free Press had a good article recently about the plan to add boxes to the Big House. I don't necessarily agree with everything Michael Rosenberg had to say, but he brings up some good points. While it will take 5-10 years to pay off the boxes, they will be a huge windfall after they are paid off, which will allow the athletic department to address some other piss poor facilities on campus (including Crisler Arena).
I think the argument that adding boxes creates a class system in the Big House is stupid. I have no problem allowing some rich fan to shell out $50k per year for a box so that a more passionate/crazy fan can have their seat on the 50-yard line. However, I am concerned that adding multi-story boxes to the east and west side of the stadium will make the Stadium a giant eyesore. Anyone see Soldier Field in Chicago after it was rennovated a couple years ago? What a disaster. There is potential for these boxes to look far more hideous than the Michigan Stadium halo ever was, and that caused a huge uproar during my freshman year of college. That's my big concern.
Another one of my favorite aspects of the stadium, the sun setting on the east side of the stadium during the second half of football games, will also be lost. With a multi-story luxury complex on the press box side, there will be no sun after about 1PM on a football Saturday. That's kind of depressing. Dollar Bill can make up for it by installing permanent lights so that Michigan can play the occasional night game at home in the future.
One potential huge advantage of the plan is that the tall structures will keep a lot of sound in the stadium. Although the Big House is the largest football stadium in the US, it is awfully quiet because of the bowl layout. The tall structures running down both sides of the stadium will trap a lot of sound.
As long as the boxes are not hideous, I think they are good for Michigan.
Needless to say, the MZone already addressed this topic in the past week. Twice in fact. Both are good articles.
What do my Michigan friends out there think about this? Non-believer thoughts are also welcome.
Adding luxury boxes to the Big House is so controversial in Michigan sports land that Dollar Bill won't even refer to them by that name. Successfully adding the boxes will bring in a substantial amount of additional cash to the Michigan athletic department each year, but is the cost really worth it? $200 million seems excessive.
The Detroit Free Press had a good article recently about the plan to add boxes to the Big House. I don't necessarily agree with everything Michael Rosenberg had to say, but he brings up some good points. While it will take 5-10 years to pay off the boxes, they will be a huge windfall after they are paid off, which will allow the athletic department to address some other piss poor facilities on campus (including Crisler Arena).
I think the argument that adding boxes creates a class system in the Big House is stupid. I have no problem allowing some rich fan to shell out $50k per year for a box so that a more passionate/crazy fan can have their seat on the 50-yard line. However, I am concerned that adding multi-story boxes to the east and west side of the stadium will make the Stadium a giant eyesore. Anyone see Soldier Field in Chicago after it was rennovated a couple years ago? What a disaster. There is potential for these boxes to look far more hideous than the Michigan Stadium halo ever was, and that caused a huge uproar during my freshman year of college. That's my big concern.
Another one of my favorite aspects of the stadium, the sun setting on the east side of the stadium during the second half of football games, will also be lost. With a multi-story luxury complex on the press box side, there will be no sun after about 1PM on a football Saturday. That's kind of depressing. Dollar Bill can make up for it by installing permanent lights so that Michigan can play the occasional night game at home in the future.
One potential huge advantage of the plan is that the tall structures will keep a lot of sound in the stadium. Although the Big House is the largest football stadium in the US, it is awfully quiet because of the bowl layout. The tall structures running down both sides of the stadium will trap a lot of sound.
As long as the boxes are not hideous, I think they are good for Michigan.
Needless to say, the MZone already addressed this topic in the past week. Twice in fact. Both are good articles.
What do my Michigan friends out there think about this? Non-believer thoughts are also welcome.
posted by GaryGinew at 9:34 PM
3 Comments:
I don't think the argument that it's creating a class system is stupid at all. they're already starting to do this by making people "donate" in order to get on the season ticket list. with the loss of more general seating, and the following increasing demand for the seats, do you think that they're not going to employ these tactics on a more extreme level? I can totally see them saying that the more you donate, the higher you are on the list, etc...
One thing that I would personally like to see (and Gary will probably blast me on this one) is advertising in the stadium. Hold on - don't get all red in the face yet. It is nice that UM is one of the last holdouts in college to not allow advertising in the stadium, but the revenue $$ could help keep the tickets at a reasonable (ha!) price and help prevent the class system in the first place. I'm not trying to denegrate the Big House but I'm not against tasteful ads by any means.
That said, Minnesota has approved an on-campus stadium which will begin construction next fall and be done by 2009. My student fees are going to increase to help pay for this stadium (which kind of sucks, since - hopefully - I won't be around by 2009 to enjoy the stadium). I've heard several people complain about the use of the U's money (about half the total bill) for this use, instead of increasing academic stature (since the U has a goal of becoming - ha! - the 3rd best public university in the U.S.) or health care/benefits/etc for its grad students (this one came from a total leftist who hates sports anyway). Personally, I'm conflicted - it's nice that UMn will have its own on-campus stadium after stupidly tearing down Memorial Stadium about 20 years ago, but I can see the argument that academics should come first at a University (especially one trying to improve its standings). Any thoughts from you relative outsiders?
Mouse - I think that protesting the luxury boxes because it creates a class system is stupid. I totally agree with you that one alread exists based on how much you have to donate to get good seats or to bypass the waiting list. Luxury boxes only move the richer fans to those seats and put rowdier fans in their old seats on the 50 yard line. From that perspective, I like the proposal.
Mpls Ju - I would hate to see advertising in Michigan Stadium. I truly appreciate watching a game in an ad-free stadium compared to some of the other places I have watched a game. It's totally worth an extra $2 per ticket in my opinion.
It's not like it will keep ticket prices from going up. Dollar Bill is going to get as much money as he possibly can because he is responsible for running a business. I used to begrudge him for that when he would screw over the marching band during my last two years of college, but he is only doing what he is paid to do. If I really thought that advertising money would control ticket prices, I might agree with you. However, I doubt that would actually happen.
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