UM: There's no waiting list for season tickets

Ann Arbor – There is no waiting list for Michigan football season tickets this fall.

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel held a round-table session with media on Tuesday morning and was asked about a wait list. Former Michigan interim athletic director Jim Hackett, during his brief tenure, had proudly revealed that for the first time in eight years, due in large part to the hiring of coach Jim Harbaugh, a wait list had returned.

According to Kurt Svoboda, Michigan associate athletic director who was present at Tuesday’s event, there is no current wait list.

“We’re at 90,000 season tickets sold for football this season, (and that) includes 18,000 students,” Svoboda said. “We were a little above where we were last year. Anybody who was interested in season tickets this year was able to purchase them.”

An allotment was made available for people to purchase single-game tickets.

Manuel touched on other subjects:

Alternate uniforms: With Michigan in its first month of its lengthy apparel contract with Nike, Harbaugh has said he would be open to alternate uniforms, although nothing will happen this year. Manuel said an alternate uniform will not be his call.

“I would leave that up to Jim and how he wants to handle that either himself or with the team, because you can create the alternate uniform,” Manuel said. “I may be a part of the conversation, but I’m not going to dictate to my coach that on a certain game you’ve got to wear a certain uniform.”

Manuel is pleased with the Nike product.

“We’ll look at what they bring to the table and maybe some ideas we may have, but for this year, we really like the look that they created for the team,” Manuel said. “I think the uniforms – I don’t know if a football uniform can be pretty or handsome – but I really love the look they created for the team, and we’re going to enjoy that. And then we’ll look and have conversations with them about alternates, and we’ll see where that goes.”

Manuel: Harbaugh ‘worth everything we pay him’

Night game in 2017: Manuel would not commit to future night games at Michigan Stadium. He was asked if there will be a night game next season.

“Could be,” he said.

Will night games at Michigan Stadium be an annual thing?

“Could be,” he said.

Football weight room: Manuel said he expects to have cost estimates and architectural drawings for a new weight room by the end of the month. The department is actively fundraising to pay for the construction, which could begin in the spring.

As part of construction, the Oosterbaan Field House roof also will be replaced.

Schedule imbalance: Manuel will continue to pursue and have conversations with the Big Ten to see if the schedule can be tweaked so that the Wolverines do not face Michigan State and Ohio State on the road in the same year (and at home the same year).

“I plan on having any conversation that I need to have to the benefit of Michigan athletics,” Manuel said. “Listen, I have great colleagues, Jim Delany is a great commissioner, we have a great staff in the Big Ten and we have great colleagues across the conference. We all have different things and tweaks that we’d like to see to the schedule.

“Would I love to see Ohio State and Michigan State on different years? Yes. Do I think it’s hard to do given where we are now? Yes. Will I continue to still have the conversations that need to be had to try to see if there’s anything that can be done? Yes. Is it easy? No.”

Manuel stressed that other programs have issues with Big Ten scheduling as well.

“It’s not going to change overnight,” he said.