If you're a Michigan season ticket holder you've got a lot to look forward to this season. If your cerebellum doesn't explode from overstimulation during the Air Force or Massachusetts game, you'll be alive to watch unranked Iowa, Northwestern and the University of Nathan Scheelhaase fighting Scheelhaase's waltz into the Big House. Admittedly, I left out Michigan State for joking purposes, but even has said on the record that, "this schedule blows a tremendous amount" If only we had an interesting non-conference game that could have potentially been played at home...
Oh that's right, we're playing defending BCS national champion Alabama September 1. What a great home-and-home series this will be for loyal Michigan and Alabama season ticket holders. It just goes to show you that if you relax your throat muscles and swallow these exorbitant PSLs and " voluntary donations," to keep your tickets, you'll be rewarded. Except that you won't and instead Jerry Jones will be rewarded. Best of all, due to some nice investigative work by mgoblog, we know this is an "everybody but Jerry Jones walks funny for a week," party:
As for our Alabama game, Michigan's announced take, $4.7 million, is so low it seems impossible it's correct. If that's all Michigan's getting from the game that's at best equivalent to playing a body-bag game at Michigan Stadium. Assuming random one-off opponent cost a million bucks, Michigan would match 4.7 million in gate receipts alone by charging an average of 52 bucks a ticket.
Michigan's 2011 budget shows $41.3 million for last year's eight-game home season in pure ticket costs minus guarantees, $8.7 million in PSDs, and $13 million in premium seating donations. Everything included, the average price paid for a seat at a Michigan game last year was about 72 dollars. Without all the donations, it was $49 last year; ticket prices increased by an average of $4.64 this year. $4.7 million is about 300k less than they'd get from a home game on ticket face value alone.
Add in Michigan's expenses for getting down to Dallas and the ancillary benefits of having a home game (parking and concessions seem to be around 300k per game and there would be some level of increased donations required to get a season ticket) and either $4.7 million is undershooting it by a lot or Dave Brandon sold a home game to Dallas for no financial benefit whatsoever. Meanwhile, tickets for Dallas start at $125. At that price Michigan could easily afford a home and home with a high-quality opponent.
If you're interested in questioning the competence of your athletic director, be sure to read that entire article. Thankfully, the state of Michigan, the University of Michigan and the Michigan Athletic Department are in a position to throw away money and engender ill will amongst already-extorted season ticket holders.
The only thing left to do now is show you two visual aids. First, Domino's stock price since this incredibly brilliant man (1/5/2010) resigned his position as CEO to become our athletic director. (NYSE: DPZ). Betting that Dave Brandon's incompetance was holding back one of America's worst pizza would have turned a 298% 26 month return. In closing, I offer you a gif which I believe sums up what's going on here.
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