I’ve finally made it back to Michigan. I’m currently in Oakland County, but am flying home to Grand Rapids in a few hours (oh, Northwest, you zany airline, you). When I get home around 10 in the morning, I’ll post the first part of the mailbag, then we’ll see about the content for the rest of the week. Friday’s recruiting update is going to be huge (hooray for sifting through 3,289 e-mails!), since there hasn’t been one for a while. Saturday’s Big Ten recruiting ranking update should see some substantial movement as well.

As always, let me know if you have any tips, questions, etc., and I’ll try to get to them as soon as I can.

Posted under Blog News

A friend of mine e-mailed me the brochure that the Athletic Department put together to explain the stadium renovation and “enhanced giving opportunities” to the University that are resulting from the construction. I hadn’t seen this before, so I thought I’d throw out some high lights.

You can click on any image for a higher resolution version.This is probably my favorite page, simply because of the ludicrous amounts of money they’re asking for and how I can’t believe they won’t get it all. The naming rights on this page (except for the Stadium Door Reception Wall) total up to $38.5M, almost 20% of the total construction budget.

These are the club seats that will be under the suites on the Crisler side of the stadium. I wonder how much more the necessary annual contribution is for these than say the 50 yard line row 20. Anyway, if we say the seats average about $2,500 and there are 3,000 of them, that means at least $7.5M per year in gifts in addition to the cost of season tickets. This comes on top of keeping the premium seats in the bowl as well if the rich people want to be with the unwashed masses.
These aren’t super exciting, and I can’t really get a number, but the rendering is pretty cool…

And now the big money makers:
There are 83 available suites (46 on the West side, 37 on the East Side). They come with free parking and “premium food and beverage service.” How premium?

Q13. Will beverage alcohol be available for premium seating patrons?
No. Michigan Stadium, including all premium seating areas, will be an alcohol free environment.

Not premium enough. So continuing with our math, lets assume the suites average $70,000 per year. That totals about $5.8M a year, and that doesn’t even count the gifts one would have to make to the Athletic department in order to get to the point in line to buy a suite.

So let’s recap:

Not too shabby. Assuming an overly simplistic model where all the prices stay the same and no interest has to be paid on the $226M construction costs, just the money from the premium seating could and capital gifts could pay back the costs in 13 years.

Posted under Blog News

Tim was supposed to come back stateside today around five. Unfortunately, during one of the last night of his stay in Australia, Tim fell from his hotel room (roughly 3-4 stories up). Luckily, an awning broke his fall and Tim is still alive and well. He suffered a back injury, but still has full mobility. I haven’t called him yet (the combination of the time change and when I found out about this made it awkward), but what I’ve heard is that he could be released from the hospital in a day or two.

Needless to say I’m relieved this didn’t end as badly as it could have. I heard a partial story earlier today and didn’t get the details and (relatively) good news until late tonight.

Until Tim gets back to prime blogging form, you’ll have to put up with updates from your’s truly. Varsity Blue is truly Tim’s blog, and I cannot hope to cover recruiting in the detail he does. Luckily, there is a baseball regional going on this weekend, and my girlfriend is letting me go to it. Hopefully I can snag a good digital camera and have a nice photo album and reactions from the first regional game tomorrow.

Tim’s regular updates will resume whenever he is able to. If you want to send your thoughts or well wishes, his e-mail address is in the menu to the right or you can click here

Posted under Blog News

Since I don’t have (free) access to the internet right now, expect the next major posting from me (aside from the ones I already have scheduled) to come next Friday, or maybe even Thursday depending on the amount of jet lag I am suffering.

A few people have e-mailed me questions, which I will compile into a fairly sizable mailbag on my way back from Australia, and you can also expect a fairly massive recruiting update (including such fun items as “a new commit”), along with an update to the Big Ten rankings. By the way, you have Paul to thank for finding a new basketball commit to be unworthy of a post. I might get something together on Robin Benzing when I get back as well.

See you all in less than a week.

Posted under Blog News

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be boarding a plane and heading out of the country for two weeks. Fear not, however. I have written a few posts that will be published over the course of my absence, and Paul should be able to come through with at least a little content.

The one area that I expect to fall behind (at least a little) is recruiting coverage. If I have internet access on my trip, I will try to keep up with the Monday-Friday schedule, but I make no promises of regular coverage. If there is big news, i.e. commitments, Paul should be able to take care of them.

Thanks to all the loyal readers, and even if you don’t visit as frequently while I’m gone, mark May 29th on your calendars, and look forward to that date.

Posted under Blog News

Michigan leads in the charity bowl, and it’s time to seal the deal.

Plus, boobs.

Posted under Blog News

I’m sure you’ve seen this elsewhere in the Michigan blogosphere, and may already be sick of it, but it’s time to participate in the Charity Bowl. And hey, if you get sick of it, maybe you’ll donate just to shut all of us up.

How? EDSBS:

1) Make a donation online to the American Red Cross, CARE, or the International Rescue Committee.

2) Email the donation confirmation to kevin@fanblogs.com and state your team affiliation by 8pm EDT on Wednesday, May 14th.

3) Results will be displayed at Every Day Should Be Saturday and Fanblogs throughout the week, with the final results shown by Thursday, May 15th.

4) The winning school will have its colors displayed at EDSBS and logo/mascot shown on every page at Fanblogs.

Let’s Go Blue for a good cause.

Posted under Blog News

Sorry for the lack of posting this weekend, I was out of town sans internet. Should be a flurry of activity this week, then I’m going to be out of the country for a couple weeks, and I’m not sure if I’ll have internet access. If not, I’ll try to have Paul get some content up in my absence.

I’ll give another programming update as the date of my departure arrives (let’s call it Friday).

Posted under Blog News

Now serving Herd audio!

For those who live under a rock (or not near the sports blogosphere), Braylon Edwards was a guest on HBO’s Bob Costas Now last week, with the topic being media. Of course, most of the argument was between Deadspin’s Will Leitch and journalist Buzz Bissinger, with Edwards unable to get a word in edgewise. You can view the video in its entirety on Deadspin.

Of course, my opinion will side with the bloggers on this one. Costas clearly sides with Bissinger (and, as the purportedly unbiased moderator of the panel, shows a lot of unprofessional bias for a supposed mainstream media member), and believes that blogging is worthless. Bissinger thinks blogs are dedicated to cruelty and journalistic dishonesty (without exception), and mainstream media are teh awesomez. Of course, Bissinger has difficulty differentiating between the actual writers of a blog and the commenters (without realizing that newspaper websites also have room for comments at the end of comments, with the same material in the responses). Bissinger also hypocritically slams blogs for being (again, without exception) mean-spirited and vulgar, while calling Leitch “full of shit,” along with various other expletive-riddled (and juvenile) insults.

I think there are good and bad examples of blogs, just like there are good and bad examples of mainstream journalism. MGoBlog creates quality material on a consistent basis, better than most newspapers I have seen. On the other hand, take the Ann Arbor News series for example. What was merited about a four-day investigative series that unearthed exactly… nothing. What wasn’t mean-spirited or vindictive about that? You can’t cull from one sample of blogs, and one sample of mainstream media, and say that, because the blog example is worse than the MSM example, all blogs suk and all newspapers rool. Leitch also raises a good point, stating that blogs are a meritocracy. If a blog is crap, people will stop reading it. If a newspaper columnist published something that is crap, the institution of the paper will still deliver that crap message to the public.

Back to Braylon. He came off as stating that blogs and media each serve a role, and that athletes have a responsibility to behave if they don’t want to appear in the news. He was overshadowed by the other participants in the panel, but came off representing the University of Michigan well.

Next? Braylon was a guest today on The Herd on ESPN Radio. He mainly talked about the appearance on Costas Now, but managed to get a few words in about the glory of Michigan and Michigan football (though he didn’t take Colin’s bait and call OSU a truck driving school). Most importantly, he said nothing in the NFL is better than scoring a touchdown against an OSU guy. (Interesting side note: he mentions that he is friends with Cris Carter, whose son is a 2009 recruit considering UM). Audio is now available at the top of the post.

Don’t stop him now! Edwards then took the opportunity to participate in an ESPN chat. Only a couple things of note for Michigan fans:

Justin (Ohio): Whats up Braylon? How awkward was it on stage with Bissinger and Leitch on Costas Now last week?

SportsNation Braylon Edwards: It was very awkward. I am not used to be able to curse on live TV. So hearing those F bombs was pretty funny.

Jason (Indiana): Braylon, I was wondering do you still follow Michigan or watch any of their games?

SportsNation Braylon Edwards: Yes, all the time. Once Michigan, always Michigan.

Jared Kent West Union IA: As a Michigan Man I just wanted to thank you for being acting like a man and staying down to earth and being a “Pros Pro” What are your thoughts on the new MICHIGAN regime.

SportsNation Braylon Edwards: I am already mad that Rich Rod because he gave the No.1 jersey to someone other than a WR, which is breaking tradition. But I think he is a great coach and will lead Michigan to a turnaround.

StevenJ (CHI): do college rivalries carry over into the nfl? do you get a little more geeked up playing against former ohio state players?

SportsNation Braylon Edwards: Very much so. I am not sure how it is with other school rivalries, but the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry does carry over and I cannot wait to play Nate Clements, Dante Witten, and AJ Hawk.

Interesting to hear that the #1 jersey has apparently been offered to an incoming freshman. I hadn’t heard anything on the matter, and would be surprised if Braylon was just misinformed.

Keep up the good work representing the University of Michigan well, Braylon.

Posted under Blog News

Taking a page out of the MGoBlue.com book, instead of having a heavy a page with a lot of images, you get a slide show!

If you’d like to get high quality versions of the images you can look through them here or just click on the picture. I guess you can even order prints if you’re into that kind of thing.

I’m going to try to get my initial impressions posted tonight before the standard college Saturday night starts. Look for player and coach interviews to be up tomorrow. The footage from the scrimmage, warm-ups and position drills will be posted throughout the week.

Posted under Blog News, Photo Album, Spring Coverage