Wait. You guys buy clothes that aren't orange???
I have to admit, man ... I love that we are a rare team that has orange within a sports context, but I only wear blue or white Illini gear out and about. Happy to wear orange to a game, but it's not exactly my favorite color outside of sports, haha. Anyway...
I know I talk about this more than most people, but I really hope we can sell the game out! It wouldn't just be a nice gesture to a team that deserves it, and it wouldn't just provide us with a better home field advantage ... it signals to our peers that we are not the "same old Illinois" that is more interested in basketball season this time of year. With that said, I am ecstatic at how relatively quickly our loyal fan base has responded to the success. Since Lovie's first year, our attendance story is quite sad, and understandably so...
2016: 45,635 average. 60,670 high vs. North Carolina. 39,031 low vs. Iowa.
2017: 39,416 average. 43,058 high vs. Nebraska. 30,456 low vs. Northwestern.
2018: 36,151 average. 41,966 high vs. Purdue. 31,898 low vs. Kent State.
2019: 36,587 average. 44,512 high vs. Nebraska. 30,654 low vs. Akron.
--- No fans in 2020, Lovie fired/Bielema hired before 2021 ---
2021: 35,347 average. 41,064 high vs. Nebraska. 27,624 low vs. Northwestern.
So, our average attendance decreased by over TEN THOUSAND in five years, and it decreased between every single year but one ... and even then, when you look at the highs and lows, that was only because of an unusually high attendance vs. Nebraska in 2019, likely because of fans THEY brought. This fan base was so beaten down, that I guess it is only reasonable to expect bad attendance to START 2022. Yes, I know we have had promotions, but the increase has actually been pretty cool...
37,832 vs. Wyoming ... already higher than the average for the last three seasons.
33,669 vs. Virginia ... still not sure what happened here, haha.
37,579 vs. Chattanooga of all teams on a Thursday.
44,910 vs. Iowa ... 4-1 start gets more fans in the building than we have had since 2016.
45,683 vs. Minnesota
57,000+ vs. Michigan State!
As others have said, considering our pathetically small season ticket base, to have 20,000 or more fans hopping on the bandwagon through single-game ticket sales is actually quite impressive. It leaves me fairly optimistic that, should we make one/both, Illini Nation will come out in impressive numbers for both the Big Ten Championship Game and a good bowl game.