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Last week, the Michigan athletic department admitted what many had long suspected: student football ticket sales are down, way down, from about 21,000 in 2012 to a projected 13,000-14,000 this fall. The department has blamed cell phones, high-definition TV, and a sweeping national trend – but those don’t tell the whole story. How’d Michigan lose so many students so fast? Answer: a lot of hard work. Athletic director Dave Brandon has often cited the difficulty of using cell phones at Michigan Stadium as “the biggest challenge we have.” But when Michigan students were asked in a recent survey to rank seven factors for buying season tickets, they ranked cell phones seventh – dead last. What did they rank first? Being able to sit with their friends. But Brandon did away with that last year, with his new General Admission seating policy. Instead of seating the students by class – with the freshmen in the end zone and the seniors toward the fifty, as they had done for decades – last year it was first come, first served. (They also raised the price to $295, up from $195 the year before, when Michigan played six home games instead of seven.) The idea was to encourage students to come early, and come often. Thousands of students responded by not coming at all. This was utterly predictable – and I predicted it, 13 months ago, in this column. TV networks loved showing blimp shots of the sold-out Big House – one of the iconic sights in college football. Now they don’t show any. read more: http://annarborchronicle.com/2014/06/06/column-paying-the-price-at-michigan/