Michigan’s rivalry game with Michigan State will have a very different kind of side attraction on Saturday: fans can donate urine for research.
The matchup itself doesn’t carry the same weight it has in past years. In 2026, the Spartans come in with the Pat Fitzgerald era sitting at 2-6, while the Wolverines are 5-3 under the Kyle Whittingham era. But outside Michigan Stadium, the focus shifts to an unusual science project tied to the game day crowd.
According to The Athletic, researchers from Michigan and Michigan State will collect urine from tailgaters as part of an event called “The Piss Off,” which is being coordinated by Michigan’s Nutrient-Energy-Water (N-E-W) Cycles Group.
There will be two donation stations with standing urinals set up outside the game at Ann Arbor Golf & Outing Club, across from gates 2 and 4 at Michigan Stadium, according to the University of Michigan.
The urine won’t just be collected and discarded. The event’s site says it will be pasteurized to create a “6x concentrate using a patented freeze-thaw process,” then processed so nutrients can be isolated, “turning phophorus and potassium into solid struvite” fertilizer pellets.
Those pellets will be used on plants at Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, as well as Michigan State’s W.K. Kellogg Biological Station.
“The Piss Off is our first stadium-scale pilot in the United States: a home game tailgate's worth of urine donations, turned into usable fertilizers,” the event’s site reads. “Your urine donations are transformed into fertilizers for our research collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU).”
The site also says it hopes “to expand to sitting [urinal] options in the future.”
Per The Athletic, Michigan’s Urine Processing Room can handle 50 liters of urine per day and produces 150 to 200 pounds of nitrogen per year.
The donation stations at Michigan Stadium are scheduled to be open from 1 p.m. ET until the game ends.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET.
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