The author is onto something. But he uses the wrong example, and his logic is flawed.
First, Michigan had over 43K students enrolled in the fall of 2013. Making the heroic assumption that the fall of 2014 will be comparable, the sale of 13K - 14K (call it 13,500) student tickets is in fact about 30%. Which means nearly 70% of students aren't even trying to spend their fall Saturdays at a game. And they get the tickets for almost nothing, especially when viewed in the context the cost for a year at UM. It's not the cost of the tickets. It's not the cost of concessions (in our student days, who among us didn't smuggle in "concessions" to tide us over until the game was over?). It's the fact that, with other alternatives easily available, a lot of students just don't care. And the ones that do, don't care enough to go to the trouble.
I've actually been to a game at The Big House. It's a dump. A Big Dump, but a Dump nonetheless. And while my visit was nearly 30 years ago, renovation to assuage the objections around waiting in line for this and that would be exceedingly difficult. Most of the stadium is actually below ground level. You walk in at somewhere around the 50th row. So there is no overhang in which to expand or spruce up bathrooms, concessions, etc.
While the Rose Bowl is built only a little below ground level, it has the same issues. The difference is, at the Rose Bowl, you have an azure blue sky behind the Pasadena mountains around the stadium. At The Big House, you have, well, the Ann Arbor sky (definitely not skyline). Which is gray most of the time. Look, I'm sure the UM stadium has been upgraded since my visit. But you can polish a coprolite only so much. Bottom line is that the UM student apathy is real, and only part of that is alternative Saturday entertainment.
That's not to say the author's point is without merit. It isn't.
The reason Alabama hasn't had this problem (yet) is the success of the team on the field.
Yes, we have a problem with student apathy. We had that when I was blessed to be an undergraduate in the previous Glory Years of the late 1970s. Back then, kind of like the Roman plebiscite, we sat on our hands, drank bourbon, and waited for the next victim to be trotted out. It's not that we were so much ego-driven. It's that we didn't know any different. Today's UA students were somewhere between 10 and 14 in Shula's last year. They don't know what it's like to lose seven times to Tennessee. Or have to rely on miracles against Auburn. Or relish a trip to...The Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl. They're spoiled. They show up late and leave early. We would have done the same if we had 70-inch HDTV, air-conditioned, cheap booze alternatives. Not to mention, having to drive to Birmingham for half our home games and be hopelessly blocked in at our parking spot in a back yard a few scary blocks from Legion Field.
The differences between Michigan's current situation and Alabama's are:
-- Our students care more than theirs, especially when leveling for the differences in the sizes of the student bodies
-- On a per-capita basis, our alumni give more than theirs (in everything, not just athletics)
-- Their stadium is nowhere near as nice as ours, even if it is slightly bigger
-- They're not winning at the level they're used to
-- When they get a chance to prove they're really, really, really (no, really) back this time, they step on their ties -- see Dallas, August 2012
The cautionary tale is that, when we're no longer winning at this level, whether it's before Saban retires or after, we'll have some of the same issues. It's just that the exponential escalation of the cost of playing college football at this level happened at the same time as we were in a Golden Age.
How do I know this to be true? Personal experience. Immediately after the 2003 season (4-9, capped by a loss to Hawaii, for those who conveniently erased the debacle from their memory banks), I upgraded my Tide Pride from the Touchdown Club to the Crimson Tide Club. At the time, the move cost nothing. The club dues were more, but the move itself was free. Today, that same move would easily cost low five figures. Plus the increased cost of the club. The difference is clear: when we weren't winning, the move was easy. Now that we are, it's hard as hell and expensive to boot.
To sum up:
-- The author's logic and examples are fractured
-- His conclusion is not
-- We could be in the same boat when the current Golden Age fades
-- Even then, we have a lot of advantages over Michigan, and all other traditional powers
-- So don't squander the good times
