The Leaders and Best?

This morning’s Detroit Free Press is reporting that The University of Michigan is planning renovations for Michigan Stadium. At first glance, I thought this was good, but upon closer examination, I became pretty cheesed. First off, I would not necessarily call myself a Michigan Traditionalist. I am ok with the athletic department adding luxury suites and I am all for adding more bathrooms. What I am not ok with is reducing the size of the stadium or staying at the current capacity. Take a look at the article and you will see that the writer sort of dances around the subject of capacity. They are going to widen seats and add suites and box seats, but there is no mention of adding much more capacity. I read the Detroit News article and the Ann Arbor News article and they dance around the subject also. Here is my advice to the athletic department, if you want the fans and alumni to accept your renovations with minimal backlash, INCREASE the size of the stadium. There is demand for the seats. The stadium capacity could be bumped to 114,000 and still sell out. The demand is there. You can talk all you want about luxury suites, no advertising in the stadium and bathrooms, but what matters to the fans and alumni is stadium capacity, specifically being the largest in America. Michigan’s athletic department took so much flak about The Halo, they took it down. Don’t make the same mistake with the renovation this time because it can’t be undone.

UPDATE: Check out the Ann Arbor News Q&A. They asked the tough question of seating capacity and it doesn't look good for the increase.