ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Michigan football added a much-needed upgrade to the gameday experience at the Big House this season, but there’s one small tweak that would make it even better.
The Wolverines unveiled their new scoreboards at the Big House on Saturday, and the best part was that fans finally got to see out-of-town scores throughout the game.
Michigan Stadium is a great place to experience gameday, but it has never done a good job catering to fans who want to keep up with what’s going on outside Ann Arbor. The cell service (at least for Verizon customers) doesn’t hold up, and scores across the country were only offered once or twice per game.
So it was a major improvement to have scores scrolling nonstop on the right side of the new scoreboards on Saturday. Bravo to whoever was involved in that decision! But there’s one tiny fix that would make it so much better.
Take out the games that haven’t started yet -- and games that went final earlier in the week.
When you put out-of-town scores on the boards, you’re catering to dedicated college football fans, and dedicated college football fans already know who won earlier in the week. We don’t need to see those scores because the games are over. Nothing is going to change.
Similarly, there’s no reason to show games that haven’t started yet. Everyone is going to go back to their tailgates or living rooms after the Michigan game and browse anyway. We knew Ohio State and Indiana would play at 3:30 p.m., and still knew it the next time it was showed.
The point of putting scores up on the big boards is to let fans know what’s going elsewhere while they’re inside your stadium. Since most people can’t get apps to load in a crowd of 109,000, those scoreboards are the only way to learn what’s happening around the sport.
On Saturday, the main scores people wanted to see were Colorado-TCU and Fresno State-Purdue. Both games were close and featured possible upsets. Maybe you could have added Utah State-Iowa, Virginia-Tennessee, and Northern Illinois-Boston College in the mix, too.
But it was hard to get updates on those matchups because the scoreboards were inundated with dozens and dozens of blank scores for games scheduled to kick off at 3:30 p.m. and later. Unless you were staring at the scoreboards and ignoring the actual Michigan game, you were likely to miss the update you wanted.
So, Michigan: You’re onto something here, and your intentions are in the right place. The new scoreboards are beautiful, and showing out-of-town scores enhanced an already excellent gameday experience.
But now you’re on the 1-yard line -- don’t stop there! This concept is one simple tweak from perfection. Hand the ball to Blake Corum and make the Big House even better.
