MSU's Alan Haller fully explains his Black Friday Ford Field decision

It’s been a busy few weeks for Alan Haller, the director of athletics for Michigan State University, as he worked through his process to determine if moving Michigan State’s final 2023 home game versus Penn State from Spartan Stadium to Ford Field on Black Friday at 7:30 p.m. on NBC (streaming on Peacock) was an overall net positive for MSU Athletics.

You can read all about it on Spartans Illustrated, including details and opinions (both for and against). And you can discuss it in our Spartans Illustrated Message Board as well.

As for Haller, he joined Jack Ebling — a friend of Spartans Illustrated — on his podcast, "The Drive with Jack," to discuss everything that went into the decision to make the move.

As we mentioned in our coverage yesterday, this wasn’t a "gimme" decision for Haller – and he surrounded himself with wise counsel as he pondered this decision.

“[Making the decision to move to Ford Field] was a close call,” Haller said. “This wasn’t a slam dunk decision for me.”

To start the process, Haller developed a list of questions that he wanted answered before he could reach a definitive conclusion.

“Most of it had to do with impact – who was this going to hurt and help?” Haller said. “What is the overall outcome that we were trying to accomplish? What are some of our goals and expectations if we do this? If we don’t do this, what is the impact?”

Haller had a group of six people who were working on different parts and pieces. He also reached out to friends in the community that he trusted and valued their opinions.

“I ran this by them,” Haller said. “How would you manage this? Would you make this decision, making a change in your normal operations? Most, if not all, of the feedback I was getting back was positive. Go through these steps, do this. Help people understand that this is a one-time decision and that it can work if we do these things.”

This wasn’t a decision he made by himself as the athletic director.

“I put together a small focus group,” Haller said. “Obviously, it had to be confidential, but there was representation from donors, alumni, season ticket holders, internally within our department.”

He reached out to campus partners who have a role in making Michigan State home football games go – concessions, housing, police, etc.

“All of those people, I had conversations with, helping me to understand if this was something we wanted to move forward with,” Haller said. “I didn’t just sit in my office and say this was a great idea. I didn’t do that. I checked with a lot of people.”

For Haller to make this decision, he said he had to look closely at the impact it would have across the campus community.

“I think the impact on a positive note, for me, outweighed the negative impact,” Haller said. “What’s important to know is that those who made money off of home football games who were not athletics – like concessions and housing and some of those other entities on campus – are going to be made whole.”

Part of the agreement Haller reached with NBC and the Big Ten allows MSU to make sure that those campus entities are not going to have lost revenue from their bottom line – and that was important to Haller.

“I didn’t make this happen to make money,” Haller said. “This wasn’t a decision … to capitalize and add money to our budget. No, what I did make sure, though, is that we didn’t lose money. We will make whatever average revenue for a home Spartan football game – those things are guaranteed [by the Big Ten]. I had to make sure that that was part of the relationship and the agreement. We won’t lose money on this. We won’t make money. This is a one-off, exciting opportunity to be in the city of Detroit.”

Haller has heard the criticism, though. And he embraces it.

“I understand the criticism,” Haller said. “Actually, I appreciate the criticism a little bit in that our fan base is passionate, our alumni are passionate.”

As an alum of Michigan State who grew up attending games at Michigan State, Haller knows where those who criticize the move are coming from.

“I love Spartan Stadium,” he said. “I played over 25 games as a student-athlete in that stadium. I attended the games as a kid and as an adult. I love Spartan Stadium; I love what it represents, the history. By no means am I devaluing Spartan Stadium by saying let’s play this one game at Ford Field. This is an opportunity to connect with our southeast (Michigan) alumni and fan base. The city of Detroit is important to us at Michigan State University. It’s strong for student recruitment – not just student-athlete recruitment – but student recruitment. We have a lot of alumni where the home base for them is the Detroit area and southeast Michigan.”

Haller repeated the fact that he is all right with MSU supporters who disagree with the move.

“I understand the criticism,” he said. “I appreciate the criticism. I love our passionate fan base and those that support us. Please continue to reach out. I’m not going to run from those who don’t agree with this. I want to hear from everyone. At the end of the day, this wasn’t a reckless decision – it didn’t come to fruition without a lot of thought, a lot of conversations, a lot of scenarios.”

Haller mentioned that not every decision he makes to move MSU forward will be popular with everyone affiliated with Michigan State. But he is comfortable with that as long as he continues to follow his process of inclusive leadership.

“I think to move forward in making sure that our department, and Michigan State, and Michigan State Athletics are moving forward in a positive way, there are going to be some decisions that not everyone agrees with and I understand that,” Haller said. “I’m comfortable with making those decisions if the process to get to those decisions is rational and not reckless.”

Haller was asked by Ebling about his motivations in making the decision. Was he trying to be a team player with the Big Ten? With the new commissioner? Helping the Big Ten out of a sticky contract situation with NBC?

“I’ll be honest,” Haller said. “It played a big part in it. It did. But I didn’t want to make a decision that harmed us. I didn’t want to just look at the Big Ten Conference and the NBC contract and all of those things and say we’re going to do this but [also] experience all of these things that [will] hurt us. No, I had to make sure that I thought this was a positive thing for us to be able to go through with this. I would not have made this decision knowing that there were going to be negative outcomes for us.”

Ebling followed up by asking Haller if he was asked to do this or begged to do this or, perhaps, told to do this. The tone of Haller’s response elevated while he answered, as you might expect.

“I definitely wasn’t told to do this, no,” Haller said. “My responsibility is for Michigan State University Spartan Athletics and our student-athletes. So, nobody is going to tell me I have to do this. I was asked to do it and we were given a time period to evaluate it and that’s what I did. I wanted to make sure that this was in our best interest. No one is going to tell me to do anything that I feel puts us in a bad position moving forward and hurts our student-athletes.”

Something that was made perfectly clear during the interview was that Haller does not plan to make this a habit.

“This is a one-time event that we’re going to put on,” Haller noted. “What I want people to look at is the possibilities of what this could be – a great atmosphere, great location, great city, the opportunity to maybe get down early to experience downtown Detroit … and do something different. Look, I’m a history person, I like routines. I like to do things that I’m familiar with. I think that as a one-time opportunity, this might be an event that people look back on and say, 'You know that was pretty cool, I’m glad I did that.'"

Haller doesn’t take making decisions like this lightly. He doubled down on his answer about how important game days and campus traditions are to him.

“I want people to know that I celebrate routines, I celebrate tradition, I celebrate everything that goes into Spartan Stadium, and being here,” he said. “Those are important to me as the director of athletics here and I’m going to make sure we celebrate those things and keep them in place, but I did think that it was important that we tried this one-off opportunity.”

Haller kept coming back around to the fact that this was for this year, and this year only.

“I’m committed to doing this once,” Haller told Ebling. “I don’t think it is in our best interest to do this again on an annual basis. I can’t never say never – that’s not something I want to say – but by no means is this something that I want to include on our schedule every year and say we are going to take one of our home games and move it to Detroit. This was an exclusive opportunity that we wanted to try to capitalize on and take advantage of. It may not be presented in the future – this could be one of the last Black Friday games in college football, at least in the Big Ten.”

It has been mentioned a few times in the last few days – as the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, it is expected that, starting in 2025, rivalry week (the last week of the college football season), will move to the weekend before Thanksgiving, leaving the holiday weekend to the conference championship games.

This is conjecture on my part, but during the interview Haller hinted at a few Big Ten events that might be coming Detroit’s way – so it isn’t hard to connect the dots and think that Michigan State’s willingness to work with the conference might result in positive developments for both the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan.

“We had an agreement to move the game [to Friday] and I started to look at opportunities to either have the game at Spartan Stadium or maybe having it at Ford Field,” Haller said. “I had already had conversations – and built a relationship with – the (Detroit) Lions and those that run Ford Field several years ago, looking at future scheduling and what that could look like. Those relationships had been established.”

This could possibly be a test run for bigger events down the road.

“Not only that, Detroit is a big part of the Big Ten,” Haller said. “Potentially, in the future, you could see a Big Ten [Football] Championship Game in Detroit. You could see, potentially, the men’s Big Ten [Basketball] Tournament in Detroit in future years. There were a lot of things that were involved in this decision and, most importantly, the student-athletes were at the front of it. They were excited about this opportunity.”

One thing Haller made very clear was that – while Ford Field will make for an enjoyable fan experience, weather-wise – no one should think this will set the precedent for future decision-making when it comes to the College Football Playoff.

“This decision was not made because it snows here and it’s cold here during that time period,” Haller said. “That did not play a big part of this decision. When we get to the expanded College Football Playoff [next year], those first round games will be at home sites. If Michigan State is fortunate enough to get into that College Football Playoff, we’re going to have it at our home stadium. This wasn’t done to run away from cold weather or anything like that.”

That makes complete sense. If MSU is ever seeded No. 5, No. 6, No. 7 or No. 8 in the CFP and hosts a first-round game, it has been made clear by Haller today that that game will be held in Spartan Stadium, regardless of the weather in mid-December in mid-Michigan.

“I just looked at it as a unique opportunity to connect with our southeast [Michigan] and Detroit fan base and also to really grow our brand and be in an area where we haven’t been in a football game in a long time,” Haller said. “I think it will be something really good for the university. It will help with student recruitment in that area. I’ve connected with our admissions department and other people in the academic units here – they can sell this and be a part of this experience as well. I think we’re going to all come together and really support this.”

There were a few other things of note in the interview. Season ticket holders have already had one-seventh of their season ticket total refunded and parking has already been reimbursed as well.

Season ticket holders will receive tickets in very similar locations to their seats in Spartan Stadium. It will be donor-based. As Spartans Illustrated reported yesterday, it’s important to note that Penn State will only get their small section, their normal visitor’s allotment. This is not going to be a neutral site game.

Michigan State’s band will be there – they’re going to perform before the game and at halftime and will be in stands.

“It will be a Michigan State atmosphere,” Haller said.

Haller was also told by the team at Ford Field that they will be able to change out the end zones so they match the end zones in Spartan Stadium.

Near the end of the interview, Haller summed it up nicely:

“I think that once our supporters, our fans, and our alumni get a chance to really sit and look at this opportunity, I think people will grab a hold of it and really turn downtown Detroit Green and White on that Black Friday.”

You can listen to the entire interview at the webpage for "The Drive with Jack" here.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Discuss this article in our premium forums by clicking here.

You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For video content, including our Red Cedar Radar podcast, find us on YouTube and consider subscribing.