Perch for the People?
Or the Powerful?
[Way to alliterate!]

Bill Martin, the director of athletics at the University of Michigan, does not like the term "luxury boxes." He said he did not necessarily want to build private rooms of elite seats atop the flowing rows of bleacher benches that rise gently skyward from the football field of Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

"I use the term 'enclosed seating,'" Martin said in a recent interview. "It doesn't have to be all a bunch of little cubicles. The motivation to build enclosed seating is to pay for fixing the infrastructure of the bowl itself and updating this 80-year-old grand old lady. It's not to build luxury boxes." [In fact, Martin’s favorite term for this proposed area is ‘Anti-Terror Surveillance Seating.' “At a time of increased Middle Eastern militancy,” he notes, “we’ll be building a ‘see without being seen’ feature which will allow local dignitaries to keep an eye on the sky for the safety of the more exposed fans.”]

But opponents of the renovation say that enclosed seating is simply a euphemism for luxury boxes. They say that adding such seating would amount to a small neighborhood of exclusive little cottages atop what is affectionately called the Big House, which has a seating capacity of 107,501.

They say the renovation would permanently change the egalitarian personality of one of the nation's most famous college sports stadiums. No formal proposal has been presented on the public agenda before the university's eight-member Board of Regents, although ideas have circulated and debate has been spirited behind closed doors.

Most members of the Big Ten Conference, and many other colleges, have added exclusive and high-priced football seating in recent years, part of a trend to find ways to add revenue in college sports. Opponents of the installation of exclusive seating at Michigan Stadium said it was a drift toward professionalism and commercialism, all the more reason to oppose it.

John Pollack, a New York City resident who is the son of a Michigan professor, is leading the opposition with a grass-roots campaign called Save the Big House. Among his allies are Fielding H. Yost III, the grandson of the legendary Michigan football coach, and James J. Duderstadt, a former president of the university and a current professor of science and engineering.

"You are taking the classic football stadium in America and turning it into every N.F.L. venue," said Pollack, a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. "It will ruin the stadium architecturally. To enshrine wealth and power in glass and steel at the leading public institution totally undermines the values of the university itself."



On March 23, the debate intensified when a letter from 33 current and former faculty members was sent to the Regents. It warned of "lavish entertainment facilities for a privileged few" and of "the growing stratification of our society and a sad corruption of our university's defining traditions."

Duderstadt, who was president of the university from 1988 to 1996, was among those who signed the letter. He said Friday in a telephone interview from Ann Arbor that the university was founded "primarily to serve the working class" and that exclusive seating would send the wrong message.

Rather than add boxes, Duderstadt said, Michigan Stadium could expand upward with more rows of common seating, similar to what was done to Notre Dame Stadium a few years ago. John Heisler, a senior associate athletics director at Notre Dame, said in an e-mail message that Notre Dame "made a conscious decision not to enter into the sky-box business" because it is a professional sports concept.




Martin, Michigan's athletic director, said revenue from covered seating would finance a major renovation needed throughout the stadium, which opened in 1927.

Last year, Michigan began to sell seat licenses for prime locations. This fall, the top price for a seat license will be $500.

"When I came in six years ago, we had a deficit of $5 million," Martin said of the athletic budget. "I fixed it through bells and whistles." [Let’s pause and savor that five million deficit. How’d it happen? Bet it’ll happen again! But even if it doesn’t, at least it’s made possible the prostitution of Michigan’s sports program.]

Martin said the stadium, despite its mystique and history, was "economically and functionally obsolete." He said that the revenue from new seating would pay for construction of wider aisles, more restrooms, better concession stands and improved access for the handicapped. [Great list, conjuring images of incontinent old ladies in wheelchairs gazing with misty-eyed gratitude at the drunken louts in the luxury boxes: Bless you, gentlemen! Bless you! ] He said surveys showed that fans want these amenities.

"We have to update the infrastructure," Martin said, adding that his department is spending $8 million for routine repair of concrete. Work has been going on at the stadium; a few large cranes and several sections with benches removed were visible on a recent visit.

"We want to improve the environment and the game-day experience for everyone who attends the games," Martin said. [It‘s not just about ordinary fans; it‘s about rich fans who don‘t want to mingle with ordinary fans.] "I do have to pay for updating Michigan Stadium, and there is no other economic model that I know of to do it."

No cost estimate has been made public, although Duderstadt said he had heard the project could cost as much as $300 million.

Mary Sue Coleman, president of the university, said: "There's been no serious investment in the infrastructure in 50 years. We don't have a workable plan yet. There are a lot of options on the table."

The Regents, who are publicly elected, meet April 21.




Athletic departments at other Big Ten universities reported generally favorable results from their new seating and said they had little opposition to their construction. Bill Jones, the senior director of ticketing at Ohio State, said it was an "unbelievable success" to build 81 suites. Each suite has as many as 16 seats and leases for as much as $75,000 a season.

"The suites generate $6.5 million annually," Jones said, adding that "club seats," which are outside the suites, generate $4.5 million. He said the biggest demand on the waiting list is for the suites, which are mostly isolated from the public concourses. [God yes. If I live in a gated community, I should also be able to attend a gated football game.]

"You don't have every Tom, Dick and Harry walking down the hall just trying to see who they know," Jones said. [God yes! Thank God someone understands.]



Ron Mason, the athletics director at Michigan State, reported less success. He said that 17 of 24 new suites were sold last season, but only 277 of 830 club seats. Mason said he expected sales to improve this fall.

He said an unforeseen bonus was the popularity of the restaurant area attached to the club seating. The restaurant is rented year-round for corporate parties and wedding receptions and will eventually generate $250,000 in revenue outside football, Mason said.

One contentious issue, he said, was alcohol, which is banned in the common seating but allowed in the boxes. [We…elllll… Ffffug..…Ah’m shell out 75 thou… I get to dowhaIwah…]

Opponents of suites at Michigan have predicted that the university will face pressure to allow alcohol there and that it could alter the atmosphere in the stadium.

Tim Curley, director of athletics at Penn State, said that a $93 million renovation of Beaver Stadium, which was completed in 2001, included 60 new suites. He said that "it went very smoothly," with little opposition.

At Wisconsin, the associate athletic director John Chadima said that 72 new suites were sold out and that there was a waiting list.

"There are liquor sales throughout the premium seating areas," he said, adding that money from leasing the suites helped pay for a renovation that included making wider concourses. He said that Scott Draper, an assistant athletic director for football at Michigan, had visited Wisconsin to study the renovations.

Chadima said that Wisconsin fans "were very thrilled" because they knew Camp Randall Stadium in Madison was in need of a face-lift.

"There was not much talk about haves and have-nots," Chadima said. When told of the opposition at Michigan, Chadima said that he understood the feeling but that private luxury seating was "the way of the world" in modern sports, and that includes college stadiums. [Reality principle, people! Get with it!]



Pollack, who is leading the Michigan opposition, remains undeterred. He said support for Save the Big House had grown since it began in July. He produced a sheaf of printed e-mail messages generated by his Web site, savethebighouse.com.

During an interview on a snowy spring afternoon, Pollack ate a cheeseburger and sipped a soda at a pub near his home in Greenwich Village. He had a book with him, "The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium" by Robert M. Soderstrom, which was published last year.

Pollack, a season-ticket holder for Wolverines football, traces his loyalty to his days at the university's nursery school, which was part of the education department at the time. Both sides in this debate want what is best for Michigan, he said, and opponents have been civil despite their disagreement.

Referring to his allies, who signed the letter that urged the Regents to reject the idea of luxury boxes, Pollack said that "these guys are old-school Michigan in the best sense" and that they "want to protect the character of the stadium we love."