The sad part is, I've seen a number of posters on other sites (like the on3 and 247 boards) say they are cancelling their season tickets due to the changes in parking and tailgating. I'm not sure how much of that is true and how much is bravado, but I definitely think it's a bad sign for the future, particularly when (a) UM students are no longer REQUIRED to pay the Athletic Fee that used to get them into all the games for free, and (b) student attendance has definitely been lower over the past 20 years, unless it's a big football game or the basketball team has already won 20 games.
I don't know how UM thinks it is going to continue to build alums like me, who buy season tickets religiously while living hundreds of miles away. But if we lose our tailgate culture, we will also lose the hardcore faithful. I'm sure we'll always be able to sell 25 or 35 thousand tickets, there are a lot of people in SoFla who need something fun to do for a few hours on a Saturday. But I'm not sure we will have the hardcore fanbase who travels to away games and buys all the crappy adidas merch and shows up for the team win-or-lose.
Trust me, I was in Houston. And while I'm proud that 700 students bought Final Four tickets, I looked around at our sections...and we were old (and wealthy)...our sections definitely looked older than the FAU sections...
We can't afford to lose long-time fans by making the parking and tailgating even messier. While I've always wanted us to build a stadium of our own and could give you a million reasons to do so, the Dolphins ownership has pretty much justified it over the last couple of years with ONE issue - disastrous parking/tailgating...
While I get what you are saying OC, I think you are missing some key points.
The Student Body has been bandwagon as F for decades at this point, and that's nothing new. The REASON why administration finally let kids opt out of the Athletic Fee is because a lot of kids don't care about athletics, and are tired of paying for tickets they never use. The next time you visit campus, look at the kids walking around. The demographics have changed from when I first hit campus in 2004, and it's like night and day from when some of our older posters first showed up to the Gables. Back in the day, I had to fight every year to get the Student Athletic Fee taken off, because I had season tickets for football, basketball and baseball and had no interest in being charged twice. At least they made it easier for students now, so I don't have an issue with that.
As I've stated before, I think Rad chose the toughest option, for something that had to be done eventually(I would have phased it in, permanently grandfathering those who have had season tickets for at least 10 consecutive years and Alumni). Whether we like it or not, Miami football can't continue to sell tickets and parking for far less money than peer institutions do, and then expect the school and the small donor base to pick up the slack in regards to lost revenue. That's insane and a losing proposition. Our fans have gotten really, really entitled and when you look at what other schools require of their season ticket holders in order to have access, you can't help but laugh. Miami has been mediocre for years, so have a ton of other programs, but their fans keep showing up, they spend money. Rad sees this, he knows that we can't be a world class athletic department and still operate the ticket department like we're the same school that used to give tickets away if you bought a Whopper.
I get it, people have gotten used to having a tailgating culture(Something we didn't really have at the OB), but parking isn't nearly as plentiful as it was 10 years ago, because Ross needs additional revenue and has sacrificed parking in order to create it. That said, I've traveled to facilities all across the country and the Miami parking situation is far better than **** near every other school out there. You'd be amazed how much people have to spend to have a relatively decent parking spot at a place like LSU, or even Nebraska. Yes, those are huge state schools with enormous alumni bases, but the fact remains. Barring a miracle happening and we get our own stadium either easily accessible from, or adjacent to campus, this parking situation is going to be what it is.