Illini Football 2025

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#101      
Fighter of the Nightman
IlliniInBuckeyeState said:
The ability to sell out Memorial Stadium on a regular basis depends greatly on there being a healthy season ticket base. So a little offseason ticket tracking, if you will...

Tom Moreland, Chief Commercial Officer, UI Athletics recently made appearances on the Saturday Sports Talk radio show and Illini Inquirer podcast. He shared some interesting tidbits that shed light on the current number (and recent growth) of football season tickets.

According to Tom, in 2022, there were roughly 22,000 season ticket holders. As of the 2024 season, there were nearly 37,000. That's growth of almost 15,000 over the two years. (I recall there being "over 10,000" new season tickets sold going in 2023, so there must have been about 5,000 new tickets sold last year.)

Tom also mentioned that there have been almost 2,000 new season ticket deposits placed since the Citrus Bowl. This would be people that intend to buy new tickets for 2025 and have made a $50 nonrefundable deposit per seat they intended to buy. Once the reseat of Memorial Stadium is done, I’m sure season tickets will be available for sale until the summer when single game tickets go on sale. At this rate, it’s possible the season ticket base will break into the low 40,000s for the 2025 season, which would be a significant milestone.
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Yep, it is just SO much easier to get good crowds when you have that high floor from season ticket holders. In 2022, we were winning and there was excitement, but there just weren't nearly as many people ALREADY planning to attend each game ... so every week, we were reliant on literally tends of thousands uprooting their schedules to go watch Illini Football. To illustrate this using the numbers you posted, let's assume our season ticket holders were indeed 22k in 2022, 32k in 2023, 37k in 2024 and 40k for next year. Now let's pick a Big Ten home game from each season that drew in the mid-50k range for attendance to see how much less we had to rely on week-of purchases...

2022: 56.1K for Michigan State on 11/5 ... needed 34.1K single ticket sales
2023: 54.2K for Wisconsin on 10/21 ... needed 22.2K single ticket sales
2024: 55.8K for Purdue on 10/12 ... needed 18.8K single ticket sales
2025: ~55K for random game ... would only need 15K buying single tickets

As others have said, if we get that season ticket base up around 45K or so, you are only relying on 15K people to get a given game sold out, and a decent portion of those fans aren't season ticketholders but were already planning for that to be their annual game or something, so you'd need fewer than that for week-of sales. There are 235K people in the Champaign MSA alone. There are about 310K in the Champaign/Danville CSA. The broader region of Central Illinois has about 2 million people, and obviously the state is massive at 12.5 million plus. This is ENTIRELY doable to fill up our 60,670-seat stadium nearly every game.
 
#102      
jrichisamazing
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
 
#103      
Iloveorangekoolaid
jrichisamazing said:
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
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Thought I was in the wrong thread for a minute 😵‍💫
 
#104      
Dkayak
We’ve been very pleased in the West Balcony. Somehow reseating has prompted me to start thinking outside the box, leading us to consider the 77 Club. Rationalizations includes age (70), an extremely promising season ahead, three November games, and it has become / replaced our “fall travel”. Am I nuts?
 
#105      
Illini2010-11
Dkayak said:
We’ve been very pleased in the West Balcony. Somehow reseating has prompted me to start thinking outside the box, leading us to consider the 77 Club. Rationalizations includes age (70), an extremely promising season ahead, three November games, and it has become / replaced our “fall travel”. Am I nuts?
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If you have the dough for it, no...
 
#106      
Konnie
Dkayak said:
We’ve been very pleased in the West Balcony. Somehow reseating has prompted me to start thinking outside the box, leading us to consider the 77 Club. Rationalizations includes age (70), an extremely promising season ahead, three November games, and it has become / replaced our “fall travel”. Am I nuts?
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The environmentals and amenities are nice, but I was told the crowd is not very lively.
 
#108      
Mr. Tibbs
jrichisamazing said:
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
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just a guess, but Im thinking football there is "Northwestern-esque". its just something to do between basketball seasons
 
#111      
Battle89
Dkayak said:
Very young and vigorous 70! We enjoyed the rowdy crowd this past year, standing more than most around us.
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I'm an old and decrepit 57, if you want to subsidize I'm happy to sit with the septuagenarians. 😁

Party Beer GIF by Justin Gammon
 
#112      
GMAN55
Battle89 said:
I'm an old and decrepit 57, if you want to subsidize I'm happy to sit with the septuagenarians. 😁

Party Beer GIF by Justin Gammon
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57 . Hell, youre barely broke in . You bought the 80000 miles tires and got alot of miles left !
 
#114      
DeonThomas
jrichisamazing said:
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
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I will absolutely be there! I have two Duke buddies here in SC. (Unfortunately, I offered to host the Illini/Duke basketball game this Saturday.)
 
#118      
Chukwuwumba
jrichisamazing said:
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
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Same. Planning on going. Family about 4 hrs away and we’ll go.
Never been. I wouldn’t expect too much of a scene, but have not looked into what might be offered, if bars are around or food trucks etc. I won’t be tailgating.
 
#119      
sbillini
Vegas in July…yikes.

Did it a couple years ago (stayed at the Delano right next to Mandalay Bay) and it was….hot. And I’m from Florida!

Regularly hit 110 during the day. Nighttime is fine (for me at least). But poolside wasn’t really tolerable during the day.
 
#120      
kyillinifan
My daughter,son in law Two grandchildren spent 8 years in Vegas. USAF. They were transferred to Offut AFB. The weather extremes are crazy. Go Illini!!
 
#123      
Cook
DeonThomas said:
I will absolutely be there! I have two Duke buddies here in SC. (Unfortunately, I offered to host the Illini/Duke basketball game this Saturday.)
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I'll be there!
 
#124      
bluemountain
jrichisamazing said:
Is anyone thinking about going to the Duke game? Or has anyone ever been to a Duke game? I wonder if they have decent tailgating areas there?

I'm only 4 hrs away so I'm thinking of going. With them getting a good QB in the portal and us most likely being ranked, it should be a pretty good atmosphere.
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I live in Charleston SC, so absolutely plan to make the trip
 
#125      
OrangeBlue98
sbillini said:
Vegas in July…yikes.

Did it a couple years ago (stayed at the Delano right next to Mandalay Bay) and it was….hot. And I’m from Florida!

Regularly hit 110 during the day. Nighttime is fine (for me at least). But poolside wasn’t really tolerable during the day.
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It's quite an experience to feel the asphalt under your feet noticeably giving as you walk. Was also there in July many years ago. I'll never forget taking a taxi from our hotel on the Strip to "old Vegas" and seeing a bank sign reading 97 degrees at 9:30 PM. Yikes.
 
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