Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I actually agree with much of you said except (and correct me if I misinterpreted your post) that we have seemingly permanently lost fans. I don't think there are people who were willing to go to an Illini football game in 2010 who wouldn't be willing to hop back on the bandwagon for an 8-9-win Illini team. There aren't other teams in the state that would draw these fans in, and we do not face any sort of structural disadvantage for fandom instate ... sure, you are going to have some people who just prefer pro sports and plenty of transplants, but we aren't Auburn trying to draw fans against Alabama. Living in Chicago, I have even noticed the infamous Notre Dame fan base here is (1) not NEARLY as big as people think and (2) incredibly static ... it's made up of Irish/Catholic Chicagoans, especially those who went to Catholic high schools and Catholic colleges that don't have football teams, but it's not actually this mass movement for your average Chicagoan without a team. Perhaps surprising to some, when we are good, those people DO in fact seem to gravitate toward Illinois.A good, succinct, accurate way to put it.
I don't think this is supported by your evidence to be honest.
I think what it shows instead is that if we have a big YEAR, one that gives people a reason to care about our present rather than just hope for our future, we will see an increase that's durable for multiple years, not just wait-and-see for a couple of games.
And I would hypothesize that that new influx will be mostly genuinely new and different people, as opposed to the folks from 2010 coming back.
Start playing games that matter in the present tense and not just for what it may mean for the momentum of a rebuild or a hypothetical recruit visit, and fans attendance choices will reflect that those games matter. Basketball has certainly demonstrated that process in recent years.
This program hasn't played a game that mattered in a decade. And the centralization and nationalization of attention in the sport is raising that "game that matters" bar every year. It's a tough situation.
I might agree that it will take more than one or even two good seasons to get the fans back, but I don't think we have "permanently" (depending on your definition of that term, I suppose!) lost any fans. Illinois has a huge alumni base and a very populated state with little instate competition for fandom. We simply haven't given people anything to be proud of for more than a season at a time, and that is emotionally taxing. I still think there are a lot of folks who would buy back in relatively quickly; they just don't want to be hurt again if there isn't a real chance.