good post, and ridiculous, laughable comparison by pnw.
Pregame: Illinois vs Eastern Illinois, Thursday, August 29th, 8:00pm CT, BTN
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Two great posts!! It stirred up a few thoughts in me:
1. I do not think it is deniable that the results on the field drive attendance everywhere. Even for places like OSU and Michigan where they will still have full crowds in down years, it was PREVIOUS (sustained) results on the field (i.e., winning) that built up that incredibly high attendance floor. I have always said attendance lags. For example, our 2007 and 2008 basketball seasons had significantly higher average attendance than 2004 or 2005. That is because it was the results of 2001-2006 that created this really high floor of Illini basketball enthusiasm. I went to the game where a mediocre Illini team almost upset a top 5 Wisconsin team in 2007, and it was light years louder I have seen than anything since then for our MUCH better 2022-2024 teams. For basketball, we are well on our way to getting it back; our crowds last year were infinitely better than what we had in 2019 and even late 2020, IMO. However, the sustained success of Illini basketball over the years has kept even our "bad" crowds quite decent. We do not have that luxury in football. On that note and referencing another thing you talked about...
2. Iowa basketball very much is Illini football, and Iowa football very much is Illini basketball in this situation. Sure, a good Iowa football team will have even better crowds at Kinnick, but it would take several years of being bad in a row to make Kinnick a "dead" atmosphere because years of winning have "trained" fans to show up. Meanwhile, Iowa basketball attendance fluctuates from awful when they're bad to mediocre when they're good to a bit better than okay when they have a top 10 team and a NPOTY candidate, lol. Why? Because that program spent years torturing their fans and "trained" an entire generation of fans to not make showing up to Carver a habit. I'm sure everyone can see the obvious analogy. Iowa basketball (and Illini football) would need 3-4 or more good seasons in a row to BUILD a culture of fan enthusiasm. In fact, I think the fact that we can rather quickly get over 55k in the stands as soon as fans believe speaks to how large our fan base actually is, because I guarantee you the casual Illini fan is still not making the trip to Champaign for games like he would if we were coming off of 3-4 straight 8-win seasons. There is a reason Memorial Stadium used to get crowds of over 70k, and those dynamics have not fundamentally changed ... the MARKET of Illini fans is still there and still very large, but we have not done enough to get them back on the bandwagon.
3. We really have tripped and fallen at so many crucial times for what is now going on 30 years, and it has had a devastating effect on our fans' collective psyche. Great 1999 season? No bowl in 2000. 2001 BCS bowl?? 2002 losing season. Breakout Rose Bowl appearance in 2007? 5-7 in 2008. 6-0 start in 2011 after winning a bowl game the previous year?? Become the first program ever to lose its last 6 regular season games and go 2-10 the following year with an underwhelming new hire. Breakout 2022 season with a New Year's Day bowl in just Bielema's second year? Piss away a golden opportunity for AT LEAST a bowl and realistically an appearance in the last ever Big Ten Championship Game with the West/East dynamic last season. While we diehards will remain loyal and trust in Bielema and see the overall program improvement, I think this season is CRUCIAL to not lose that tier of fans between the diehards and the casual fans ... the ones who take our attendance from 35k to 50-55k.
I hate to tell you this... But in my 80+ years of experience, 'being fair' has NEVER entered into the picture... ANY picture... particularly when it comes to Illinois athletics... LOL
Stay at home. We don't need you.
It starts and ends with the amount of money being invested in to the program. Has less to do with W-L when you can just spend money on the best players. I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to go Illinois games. Wish I could go to every single one.
Maybe when the little ones are older. My son is getting in to sports.
Maybe when the little ones are older. My son is getting in to sports.
Then there's me. I'm not willing to get all that loud even when they win. Win/Lose/Draw, I'm not a loud cheerleader. Never have been.
It'll get worse before it gets better. Lots of Saturday youth sports contests.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
The number of empty seats at games and the constant ticket giveaways required to gin up attendance, says otherwise.
Super die-hard fans tend to show up regardless, but the best way to get the casual fan or family that is in the burbs in seats consistently, is a culture of winning. While I do not fully agree with what the OP stated, they do represent a large contingent of Illini fans, especially when it comes to football. That is the sad reality.
This is the truth lol
And who, by his own admission, stayed quiet when he attended his most recent game in Champaign.
wow, you really put me in my place.
The problem that was being discussed was the thousands of empty seats in the stadium game after game. Dumb@$$ comments like yours are the reason. Saying you should just love it or get out of here is how stadiums remain empty.
blackdog
- Champaign
Is it that we need a culture of winning or a culture of FUN? Right now besides the game itself there aren't a lot of reasons to come out. Other people have said it but making more out of the gameday experience so that people can have a good time regardless of win or lose will go a long to making sure they come back again.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Honestly, I think the two go hand in hand. I agree with everything about making the gameday experience better and the DIA is making some decent strides in trying to improve that. However, at least for me, the game and the result to the game impacts my determination of how much fun I had when attending much more than the gameday experience. The 2.5 hour drive home after an excruciating loss (like the 63-0 November loss to Iowa in 2018, 29-10 loss to Northwestern in 2019, etc.) is so much worse than the one where we get an exciting win. I remember almost wanting to dump my season tickets after the 2018 Iowa game (I am happy I still kept mine).
Also, I do not define a culture of winning as winning 9-10 games year in year out. I see culture of winning much more of getting to a place where you are consistently making bowl games.
Do you have examples of what other college stadiums do to make it a "fun" gameday experience other than winning? Wisconsin has Jump Around, but If they got rid of it there attendance would likely be the same as now.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I get the frustration and I fall into the "loyal to a fault" camp. However, unfortunate as it is ... we need EVERYONE we can get, haha. This is just for fun and not scientific in any real way, but looking at our attendance over the last 30+ years, it would seem it grows as follows. Needless to say, this is tickets sold and not butts in the seats, as those numbers are almost impossible to obtain:
30,000: The truest of diehards, bordering on crazy. There are just simply too many Illini fans for attendance to realistically drop below this, even in the worst of times.
40,000: The diehards. Unless the program is just BEGGING us to disengage (e.g., at the depths of our despair circa early 2019), we can very easily sell 40k+ tickets, especially when the weather is decent or we play a decent opponent.
45,000: This is where we start to rope in a few passionate/engaged fans that are not going to make the trip down if we are just terrible. They'll watch on TV and check the score constantly if they are at a wedding or something, but "going to at least one Illini game per year" just isn't baked into their fall schedule if we are depressingly bad.
50,000: This speaks to a true uptick in enthusiasm. We are now not just winning BACK our most loyal fans, we are re-engaging some more casual fans. These folks are VERY clearly Illini fans, but they often just are not "into it enough" to invest in going to a game. I would count my dad (who lives in Iowa) in this category. These folks WILL entertain a trip to Champaign "if the team is decent (or at least exciting)." Many of these folks have jumped back on the bandwagon after the 2022 season, and we CANNOT afford to lose them!
55,000: This is when we start to get a good chunk of casual fans attending games. These might be folks living in Chicagoland or the Metro East or Peoria or whatever that would unabashedly claim the Illini as "their team," but they don't live and breathe it. VERY unlikely to be active on a place like Illinois Loyalty.
60,000: Now you are engaging some people who might not even IDENTIFY as Illini fans when we are truly down and winning 2-3 games per season for a sustained period of time. However, they are not active fans of other teams and would "default" to the Illini as the state/local team or something, but for a fan at that devotion level to go to a game, we have to generate true excitement (ala Lovie's first year vs. UNC before it all went downhill).
70,000: This level would require a return to 1980s levels of instate support, where kids (like my dad!) with no "on-paper" connection to the U of I grow up huge Illini fans for no other reason than they're Illinoisans. ALSO, it indicates that a trip to Memorial Stadium is IN AND OF ITSELF an event not to be missed, regardless of one single thing to do with the football. Think Tailgreat days.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Put me in the camp that we firmly need BOTH, and many fans on this site are severely underrating how much the "fun" aspect matters for not just attendance, but the reputation of the program. I have tailgated countless times in Iowa City with my friends, and people in the community rearrange everything in the fall just to be part of the tailgating and partying on college football Saturdays. People who literally DON'T LIKE THE HAWKEYES (like me!) still have a great time and don't pass up a chance to get in on the action if they don't have other plans.
While we need to keep improving on the field, we also need to continue the great efforts under Whitman to improve the gameday experience. People going to Wrigley are not just there for the baseball being played by the Cubs ... we need at least a fraction of that at Memorial Stadium. Any one idea might get talked down as silly by some here, but that is part of the problem! As one small-scale example, have an annual brewery day for one game, where Central Illinois breweries set up tents and create a bit of a "Beer Village" in part of Grange Grove or some surrounding area. Don't have it be a one-time gimmick, turn it into an annual fall tradition that is famous throughout Central Illinois. Have 2-3 of these with different themes per year. We need SOMETHING in our tailgating/gameday scene that definitively distinguishes the fan experience from other schools. People underestimate how many casual fans that ropes into attending at least one game per year, and word spreads that "going to an Illini football game" is just simply a good time in and of itself.
blackdog
- Champaign
I'm not discounting that winning probably has the most powerful effect on engagement and attendance but as FoN has pointed out we don't even have a tailgate culture. DIA is definitely moving in the right direction with everything from adding more vendors, discounts, promos, etc but I think they need to be more creative about adding more activities, pregame, during breaks in the game, and postgame.
@Fighter of the Nightman Excellent Post! I had season tickets when I lived in Champaign from '03-'08. I now live in NE Iowa and will travel to campus 1-2x per year. I went to 2 games in '22, 1 game in '23, and will be at Kansas and potentially Michigan in '23. It's not the cost but the time/value. If I am driving 6 hours, the game needs to be competitive and the atmosphere better than my own living room.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
That last one isn't happening unless they increase capacity again at Memorial Stadium (currently sitting at 60,670), so I'd shift some of those numbers down a little bit.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, I was just trying to make the point that we were engaging a way wider swathe of the fan base when that was a “proper” capacity for Memorial Stadium.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
I want to see our defense be super stingy against EIU's ground game.
Illini Octoberfest. Big tents, brats, pretzels, Marching Illini playing, etc
We might have too big of a tailgate culture. Look out from the stadium and see how many people tailgate and never go into the game
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