Illini Football 2022

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#79      

chiefini

chiefini
Rockford, Illinois
chiefini
Our crew is supporting by going to four early in the season games, for sure. It would have been one more, but they switched the schedule for that Homecoming game. We may go to more, but it will depend on the Illini record. After having season tickets for 35 years, we got tired of paying big bucks to watch crappy football, especially in crappy weather. We are now in a wait and see approach.
 
#81      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
It would be interesting to know the geography of where fans come from for Illini football and basketball games, and compare that across time.

Just like, Chicagoland, Central Illinois, Rest of State, Out of State.

Is our basketball crowd more predominantly local? (That's always been my suspicion but it would be interesting to see). Is the decline in football over the years focused in any area? (You'd guess Chicagoland I guess? But how many people were making that trek in the Zook years?)
 
#88      

TGB

T
TGB
My father had season tickets for 37 years before passing away. I'm going on my 18th year of 4 season tickets. I live near St. Louis and drive 170 miles each way for the games. I saw a lot of good players through the years with my dad and now grandkids. Unfortunately they were usually usually on the other teams. I did see Butkus play in the Rose Bowl, and rooted for the Bears ever since.
 
#89      

Pennsy

P
Pennsy
ChiefGritty said:
It would be interesting to know the geography of where fans come from for Illini football and basketball games, and compare that across time.

Just like, Chicagoland, Central Illinois, Rest of State, Out of State.

Is our basketball crowd more predominantly local? (That's always been my suspicion but it would be interesting to see). Is the decline in football over the years focused in any area? (You'd guess Chicagoland I guess? But how many people were making that trek in the Zook years?)
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St. Louis suburb, legally 3 1/2 hour drive. 11 AM starts for football demands I stay in Tuscola the night before. Football is worth it because of tailgating then seeing the Marching Illini. As for basketball, doing this drive for a 2 hour game is not worth it, plus most are at night. The drive is why the St. Louis Post-Dispatch does not send its own sports reporter to games, they rely on Decatur and Danville. Again for basketball, although I stayed in Weston Hall, walking to the Assembly Hall for a night basketball game through the ice and snow in frigid temps was challenging, but we were young, we did it regardless.
 
#90      

Navy_illini

N
Navy_illini
If Illinois football continues to improve and puts a quality product on the field our fans will come. We need to be competitive and have a chance against the top tier teams. Although It will be hard to get fans to show up to a game against NW the weekend after thanksgiving.
 
#91      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
Navy_illini said:
If Illinois football continues to improve and puts a quality product on the field our fans will come. We need to be competitive and have a chance against the top tier teams. Although It will be hard to get fans to show up to a game against NW the weekend after thanksgiving.
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True, but even that would fix itself after a generation experiences winning … Iowa/Nebraska is a must-attend event the DAY after Thanksgiving.
 
#93      

Ander1345

A
Ander1345
ChiefGritty said:
It would be interesting to know the geography of where fans come from for Illini football and basketball games, and compare that across time.

Just like, Chicagoland, Central Illinois, Rest of State, Out of State.

Is our basketball crowd more predominantly local? (That's always been my suspicion but it would be interesting to see). Is the decline in football over the years focused in any area? (You'd guess Chicagoland I guess? But how many people were making that trek in the Zook years?)
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I live in the Western Chicago Suburb of Carol Stream. Have a 2 year old and a 4 year old so it's hard to go on the road for about 3 hours without a decent amount of planning, and the kids aren't likely to be entertained enough by the game. But maybe because they have the same colors as Blippi?
 
#94      

TheChief4Life

TheChief4Life
TheChief4Life
My wife and I had season tickets for the past 17 years. We have a 10 and 12 years old that had been to every home Illinois game (sans 2020 season) since birth. Lived in Springfield for the first 12 years of those years, and now live in St. Louis. However…

The game experience is not enjoyable. I’m not talking about the product on the field, I’m talking the game experience in general. Grange Grove was an awesome improvement, but I feel it has yet to be fully or correctly utilized. Once inside the stadium it feels like you are in a prison. You get yelled at for standing, the student section is half full and they are never excited, the pregame and entrance of the players is a joke, there’s no real fan experience, etc. I’m not sure what the fix is (or if I’m just being cranky), but when the team isn’t winning, there HAS to be some sort of effort to get fans into the stadium and make it “worth it”. I’m just not seeing it. Even cheap tickets (and they ARE cheap) isn’t a real reason for people to drive 2+ hours to attend a game (let alone these random Thursday and Friday night games).

Winning will solve a lot of problems, but so will improving the experience. You cannot keep banking on the most loyal of fans to keep buying season tickets.

Anyway… we will there for an 18th year this season… and I’ll complain about the experience again after each game.

Loyalty creates suckers.

I’m a sucker.
 
#95      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
For those who wish to dissect a pattern relative to what Robert is talking about, I decided to look at our attendance in the past decade and more. These are the times we have drawn 45k or more (or approximately 75% of the stadium's capacity once it was reduced to 60,670) since after our 2008 season, when I think our enthusiasm from the Rose Bowl season was still very clearly alive:

2010: 62,870 vs. #2 Ohio State on 10/2 at 11:00 am
2009: 62,870 vs. #13 Penn State on 10/3 at 2:30 pm
2009: 62,870 vs. Michigan State on 10/10 at 11:00 am
2009: 62,347 vs. Illinois State on 9/12 at 6:00 pm
2016: 60,670 vs. North Carolina on 9/10 at 6:30 pm
2011: 60,670 vs. #22 Michigan on 11/12 at 2:30 pm
2009: 60,523 vs. Northwestern on 11/14 at 11:00 am
2010: 60,119 vs. Michigan on 10/31 at 2:30 pm
2010: 55,549 vs. Minnesota on 11/13 at 11:00 am
2011: 55,229 vs. Ohio State on 10/15 at 2:30 pm (ILL ranked #16)
2011: 54,633 vs. #15 Wisconsin on 11/19 at 11:00 am
2010: 53,550 vs. Indiana on 10/23 at 11:00 am
2011: 53,243 vs. Northwestern on 10/1 at 11:00 am (ILL ranked #22)
2010: 52,217 vs. Southern Illinois on 9/11 at 6:30 pm
2015: 51,515 vs. #3 Ohio State on 11/14 at 11:00 am
2011: 50,843 vs. #22 Arizona State on 9/17 at 6:00 pm
2010: 50,569 vs. Northern Illinois on 9/18 at 11:00 am
2014: 50,373 vs. Iowa on 11/15 at 11:00 am
2010: 50,371 vs. Purdue on 10/30 at 11:00 am
2009: 48,538 vs. Fresno State on 12/5 at 11:30 am
2012: 47,981 vs. Indiana on 10/27 at 11:00 am
2013: 47,362 vs. #25 Wisconsin on 10/19 at 7:00 pm
2016: 47,144 vs. Michigan State on 11/5 at 11:00 am
2012: 46,912 vs. Minnesota on 11/10 at 2:30 pm
2013: 46,890 vs. Miami (OH) on 9/28 at 11:00 am
2012: 46,734 vs. Penn State on 9/29 at 11:00 am
2012: 46,539 vs. Louisiana Tech on 9/22 at 7:00 pm
2013: 45,895 vs. Michigan State on 10/26 at 2:30 pm
2015: 45,438 vs. Wisconsin on 10/24 at 11:00 am
2012: 45,369 vs. Charleston Southern on 9/15 at 11:00 am
2011: 45,154 vs. Arkansas State on 9/3 at 2:30 pm
2014: 45,046 vs. Purdue on 10/4 at 11:00 am

From a very initial scanning of this, it seems to me that all of the usual excuses BESIDES having a losing program fall apart pretty quickly. Game times? Our best attendance was an 11:00 am game, and so was #3. Weather?? We sold more tickets for a game in DECEMBER vs. Fresno State of all teams than we have in years! Lack of name opponents? We drew more for a game vs. Illinois State than we have for a Big Ten opponent since before Lovie... Other teams bringing the fans? I don't see much of a pattern for that.

The true pattern, with obvious "flukes" present as there are in every dataset, seems to be that when Illinois fans feel the program has an ounce of hope and that they might be able to head to Memorial Stadium with a semi-optimistic outlook, they're happy to go! Does anyone think we don't WANT the tailgating traditions and atmosphere and pageantry of Wisconsin or Iowa? Do you really think the people in Illinois wouldn't love to flock into packed taverns on Saturdays to watch a "local" team the same way folks do in those other states? People just do not want to invest in a hopeless cause, but they've proven they'll buy back in quickly if there's a glimmer of hope!

When you look at the trajectory there, I think there is a clear picture of a slightly larger contingent giving up with each new disappointment. 2009 was a massive disappointment, but we still had so much talent in the program, and it's pretty easy to see a bump in enthusiasm in 2010 and 2011 when we were back to being a bowl-going program. As a fellow diehard, I wish people would just attend because it's fun to be there and hope for the wins to come, but ... it's not realistic.

If we have an optimistic start to the year, I actually DO think you will start to see the bump. I wouldn't expect more than 35-40k for the opener vs. Wyoming, but if we beat them and then win in Bloomington, IN the next week ... I bet you will see more than 40k and possibly more than 45k in Memorial Stadium when a 2-0 (1-0) Illini team takes on Virginia the following Saturday. If we were to beat UVA and Chattanooga to start 4-0 and at least look respectable losing in Madison ... I guarantee you will see a great crowd vs. Iowa the next week. We have every chance to try to reinvigorate this program's fan support this year, let's do it!
 
#96      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
TheChief4Life said:
My wife and I had season tickets for the past 17 years. We have a 10 and 12 years old that had been to every home Illinois game (sans 2020 season) since birth. Lived in Springfield for the first 12 years of those years, and now live in St. Louis. However…

The game experience is not enjoyable. I’m not talking about the product on the field, I’m talking the game experience in general. Grange Grove was an awesome improvement, but I feel it has yet to be fully or correctly utilized. Once inside the stadium it feels like you are in a prison. You get yelled at for standing, the student section is half full and they are never excited, the pregame and entrance of the players is a joke, there’s no real fan experience, etc. I’m not sure what the fix is (or if I’m just being cranky), but when the team isn’t winning, there HAS to be some sort of effort to get fans into the stadium and make it “worth it”. I’m just not seeing it. Even cheap tickets (and they ARE cheap) isn’t a real reason for people to drive 2+ hours to attend a game (let alone these random Thursday and Friday night games).

Winning will solve a lot of problems, but so will improving the experience. You cannot keep banking on the most loyal of fans to keep buying season tickets.

Anyway… we will there for an 18th year this season… and I’ll complain about the experience again after each game.

Loyalty creates suckers.

I’m a sucker.
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100% agree with the bolded, and while I think Whitman's athletic department has made exceptional strides here ... there is a lot of work to be done. I lived in Iowa City for a while ... has anyone here ever been to a game at Kinnick? Or to one in Madison? Football in the Big Ten frankly needs to be an old-fashioned, Midwestern party. And ours is so, for the lack of better term, "white collar." The business-like feel of Memorial Stadium sucks any potential atmosphere out of there. You want the surroundings of your stadium to be hectic with buzz and excitement. Grange Grove has looked really great at times, but then it dwindles toward the end of the season when the team has faltered and the weather is bad.

I have heard it was very different in the '80s, so it's obvious that this isn't some "structural" problem with Champaign or Illinois specifically, but we need our tailgating scene to keep improving. I think a lot of people underestimate how many more students and younger fans would go to games if they associated an experience at Memorial Stadium as being a bit more of a party scene, and I think there are EASILY ways to cultivate that vibe while keeping (most of) the environment as family- and donor-friendly. Programs all over the country do it...
 
#97      

GForce

GForce
GForce
Fighter of the Nightman said:
100% agree with the bolded, and while I think Whitman's athletic department has made exceptional strides here ... there is a lot of work to be done. I lived in Iowa City for a while ... has anyone here ever been to a game at Kinnick? Or to one in Madison? Football in the Big Ten frankly needs to be an old-fashioned, Midwestern party. And ours is so, for the lack of better term, "white collar." The business-like feel of Memorial Stadium sucks any potential atmosphere out of there. You want the surroundings of your stadium to be hectic with buzz and excitement. Grange Grove has looked really great at times, but then it dwindles toward the end of the season when the team has faltered and the weather is bad.

I have heard it was very different in the '80s, so it's obvious that this isn't some "structural" problem with Champaign or Illinois specifically, but we need our tailgating scene to keep improving. I think a lot of people underestimate how many more students and younger fans would go to games if they associated an experience at Memorial Stadium as being a bit more of a party scene, and I think there are EASILY ways to cultivate that vibe while keeping (most of) the environment as family- and donor-friendly. Programs all over the country do it...
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I was a student in the '80s and remember the awesome tailgating and pre-game parties, continuing inside (everyone snuck in botas filled with schnapps), more than the actual play on the field. A couple seasons they had a tailgate competition where groups put together some pretty elaborate creations, complete with performances, with prizes that included a spring break trip for 8 to the Bahamas for the first prize.
 
#98      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
Fighter of the Nightman said:
a slightly larger contingent giving up with each new disappointment.
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A good, succinct, accurate way to put it.
Fighter of the Nightman said:
If we have an optimistic start to the year, I actually DO think you will start to see the bump. I wouldn't expect more than 35-40k for the opener vs. Wyoming, but if we beat them and then win in Bloomington, IN the next week ... I bet you will see more than 40k and possibly more than 45k in Memorial Stadium when a 2-0 (1-0) Illini team takes on Virginia the following Saturday. If we were to beat UVA and Chattanooga to start 4-0 and at least look respectable losing in Madison ... I guarantee you will see a great crowd vs. Iowa the next week.
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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.
 
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#99      

STLIlliniMike

S
STLIlliniMike
ChiefGritty said:
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.
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I think the “evidence” is the beginning of the Lovie era. There was a genuine excitement on campus and people showed up at first. The results didn’t follow though. I’m not at all concerned about filling the stadium if Illinois could finally put a consistently competitive product on the field. People just gotta see it first.
 
#100      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
STLIlliniMike said:
I think the “evidence” is the beginning of the Lovie era. There was a genuine excitement on campus and people showed up at first. The results didn’t follow though.
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I think the UNC game is a pretty big red herring in all of this.

I was at Lovie's first game, at home against Murray State. Gorgeous weather, 2:30 kickoff, Grange Grove was empty and the stadium was barely less so.

No comparison to the home opener 1-AA sellout vs Illinois State in Game 2 of 2009 for the 0-1 Illini following the disaster of 2008.

Then for the UNC game, students were allowed in for free and Whitman used every trick in the book to juice the attendance for that one game. As he should have, that's good ADing, burning some money to draw butts and make that an event was what the program needed at that moment. But it doesn't make the "sellout" representative of the actual fan interest at the time. The next week against Western Michigan it was down to 40k again and wouldn't go any higher the rest of the year.

I think the right way to think of the Lovie hire wasn't as something that energized the fans that had fallen away from the program, it was a cool glass of water in the desert for the handful of us that still bothered to care after Beckman and Not Ideal and the forgotten mess that was the process that got us Whitman. In March of 2016 the world was screaming at you that you were a complete moron wasting a single second of your time caring about Illinois Football. Then out of nowhere this total curveball that ripped that history out of the notebook and started a new narrative.

Lovie was an unexpected and genuinely miraculous gesture of sincere thanks from the football gods for keeping the faith, but people outside our little lifeboat always saw that for what it was and were quicker to see the obvious as it unfolded.
 
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