A month after Zach Bryan’s sold-out show, the U-M announced its next Big House performance: Morgan Wallen. The concerts will fund scholarships for U-M athletes, as well as profit-sharing agreements for its Name, Image, and Likeness program. | J. Adrian Wylie
On a warm September evening last fall, country superstar Zach Bryan strode up the stairs inside Michigan Stadium, past the lettering that reads, “The Team The Team The Team,” and entered the Big House to explosive cheers from 112,408 fans.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” said Bryan, clad in a maize-and-blue Michigan jersey with No. 2, the number worn by Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson and more recently Blake Corum.
Near the top of the Big House, pastry chef Dante Kemble looked on at “one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.” He had missed out on February 12 when tickets sold out, but a friend sold him an extra for $115.
Bryan’s appearance marked the first major concert held at Michigan Stadium—and a month later, U-M announced that an even bigger country performer, Morgan Wallen, will play two shows July 24 and 25. The concerts have one main purpose: to generate much-needed revenue.
In 2025, the athletic department committed to paying full scholarships to every athlete on Michigan’s NCAA-recognized teams, and providing profit-sharing payments under its Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) program. Initially, those combined costs were estimated at around $60.5 million. But before the 2025 football season, Michigan was hit with NCAA sanctions related to a sign-stealing scandal that will cost an estimated $35 million, according to Yahoo! Sports.
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Since the Big House is under the athletic department’s wing, the concerts are the equivalent of leasing the venue for private events. They don’t require approval from the university, and so far, the only involvement by the Board of Regents was to approve a pyrotechnic request for Bryan’s concert.
“Michigan Stadium is only in use for six to eight home football games a year,” says Sarah Hubbard, a Republican regent from Okemos. “It’s important to find other ways to use it.”
On social media, numerous Michigan fans have questioned the department’s choice of artists. In one Reddit post, residents questioned why U-M chose Morgan Wallen, who was suspended from his record label in 2021 for using a racial slur and arrested in 2024 for throwing a chair off of a six-story Nashville rooftop bar. (In February 2025, Zach Bryan was caught on camera using a homophobic slur.)
Some voiced a preference for a rock star like Bob Seger, who grew up in Ann Arbor (never mind that he’s retired from touring), or Detroit’s Eminem. But there’s no questioning Bryan and Wallen’s country credentials. Bryan, the number-five country artist in 2025 on Spotify, has sold 30 million albums, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Wallen, who is Spotify’s number-one country artist, has sold 41 million.
Hubbard says “it’s a real dance” between the availability of the Big House and potential artists’ schedules. Many major acts only tour in spring, summer, and early fall, and U-M can’t schedule anything that would conflict with commencement. Moreover, she adds, “you have to find the intersection of an artist who can sell out the stadium, and their schedule.”
Ticket sales proved no problem for Bryan, whose seats started at $55 and ranged to $1,000, and sold out in two and a half hours. He also sold a record $5 million in merchandise at booths downtown and inside and outside the Big House, according to Variety. Wallen, meanwhile, is charging between $193 for standard tickets and $6,275 for VIP packages, and had tickets left at press time. While Bryan set a record for the largest ticketed audience to attend a U.S. concert, Wallen’s concerts use a different stage configuration that allows for only 75,000 tickets each night, about 35,000 fewer than a typical game.
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Hubbard says the concerts do not generate as much revenue as a football game, since it must be split with the performers. An athletic department spokesperson declined comment on the artists’ cut, referring the Observer to the singers’ management companies, which did not respond to requests for comment.
In contrast to football games, which routinely generate tickets for drunken or unruly behavior, the Ann Arbor Police Department did not arrest a single fan during Bryan’s event, says department spokesperson Chris Page. Nevertheless, the length was a challenge for AAPD. Gates opened at 4 p.m., the first performance started at 6 p.m. and the star began his twenty-seven-song set at 9:30 p.m., sending fans home after midnight.
“It was a longer operational day, and officers worked longer shifts than they would on a football game day,” Page says.
He says AAPD has gotten advance word before each concert was announced. But Taylor Bond, co-owner of Park N Party, which rents about 20,000 parking spaces for football games, says he had no heads-up for either the Bryan or Wallen dates.
The back-to-back events could be a challenge for the organizers, who must clear out and clean the Big House before letting the next audience in, Bond said.
“I’m not complaining about the opportunity. I just want to make sure I offer the best experience I can to those who are coming,” Bond says. “It’s going to be the third time around before we figure it out.”
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One local bride-to-be was distressed to learn that the Wallen concerts fall on the weekend she chose for her event. “We intentionally picked that Saturday anticipating that it would be a quiet weekend right after Art Fair weekend!” Amy Stark wrote to the Observer.
“Our many out-of-town guests will be in a scramble to find hotel rooms to stay, as many hotels around town are unwilling to offer room blocks or are priced well above a rate we can afford—including our wedding reception hotel, which is pricing rooms at $2,000 per night.”