Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Michigan Tuesday: Says to Hold on To Your Wallet

Just for the record: the NFL can't figure out a way to pay it's employees out of a $9 Billion pool, Jim Tressel "forgot" about his players selling it's gear and got fined $250,000, UConn went to a BCS Bowl and ended up losing close to $1.8 Million and now Michigan is looking for a few extra dollars of your money. 

With the new Glick Field House, the new score boards, the new basketball practice facility, the Crisler Arena renovation, the new field turf, the new luxury seating, RR's contract buyout and the nicer bathrooms at the Big House you knew the Michigan Football Program would come for your money soon rather then later.

That announcement happened on Monday, when Michigan announced that ticket prices were going up.   Season tickets are going up about 12% and individual tickets for "regular games" are going up $15 to $70 a ticket.  The "premium tickets" for the good games are now $85. 

I am a little torn on this news.  On one hand, Michigan has made a lot of improvements to the Big House and (soon) Crisler Arena.  On the other, the Michigan economy is still struggling and to raise prices for the masses seems difficult to take when giving up your season tickets pretty much means you will never get them back (due to the waiting list).   I know it would never be "spun" this way but I hope this doesn't have anything to do with RR's buy out.   Michigan spent a ton of money on that guy and got little to no results.


Recruiting News

Michigan is still looking for it's first verbal commit for the 2012 class and it seems two prospects with Michigan offers are picking other schools.

  • Taylor Decker a 6'8 offensive guard picked ND over the weekend.  Taylor had a Michigan offer.
  • Dan Voltz one of the top offensive line prospects in the Midwest is expected to announce his decision for Northwestern today.
  • Vince Biegel a LB from Wisconsin visited A2 this past weekend.  He is visiting BYU soon as well.  The word on Vince is that his dad played at BYU and is probably a Wisconsin lean.   He wants to make an early decision and unless U of M can get him back on campus for a practice, Michigan seems to be playing catch up in his recruitment. 
  • Allan Gant from outside of Toledo visited Ann Arbor last week and didn't come away with an offer.  Allan's dad played for Bo at Michigan.