It was officially announced yesterday that Illinois and Northwestern will meet in football at Soldier Field this fall. They will play each other again on the lakefront in three of the next five years in total. This is a brilliant move on the part of Illinois Athletic Director Mike Thomas. It’s an excellent attempt to get the Chicago market, a die-hard pro sports town, interested in college football.
College sports will always have an uphill battle in the second city to grab attention, but at the same time it’s also the nation’s third largest market, and there’s lots of untapped potential.
When it comes to college sports, it is an Illini basketball town first and foremost; even in the leanest of times.
And lately, Chicago’s interest in Illini basketball has been trending significantly downward.
Take the Solider Field idea, and combine it with the kind of college basketball doubleheaders we see in neighboring states Iowa and Indiana, and you could really have something.
Illinois plays one game a year at the United Center, almost always in December. Unfortunately, the last few UC opponents for Illini basketball (Oregon, UIC, Auburn, UNLV, UIC, Gonzaga and Georgia) are all very bad for drawing fans. Those are all football schools or mid-majors.
Yes, UNLV was a powerhouse 25 years ago and Gonzaga is pretty superlative during the regular season, but they, like the football first schools, do nothing when it comes to drawing big crowds. Illini basketball should never schedule UIC at any point, anywhere. Nothing good comes of that.
This year’s UC game had an official attendance of 13,000 and that meant the facility was a third empty. As someone who was there I can tell you that attendance number is highly inflated, and that it was a very “late arriving” crowd.
Illini basketball almost always sells out their trips to Welsh-Ryan Arena (not hard to cause it only seats 8,118) but this year was an exception. The official attendance for that contest was just 7,652. So now’s the time to mix things up.
Here’s the idea:
-Have one conference game between Illinois and Northwestern at the home of each team each season.
-Have the other conference game as part of a doubleheader in December at the United Center with two of the following (on rotation each year, DePaul, Loyola, Bradley, Illinois State, SIU) playing in the other game.
-Either hold it on one of those non college football Saturdays in December, or have it on a Friday night, with another doubleheader on Sunday (winners and losers from Friday meet)
-This would double header/tournament would replace the Illini basketball game at the United Center each year
-Indiana is already doing this (Indiana, Butler, Purdue, Notre Dame) every year, as is Iowa (Iowa State, Iowa, Drake, Northern Iowa)
-It needs a name like “Prairie State Classic” or “Land of Lincoln Invitational” of course. Indiana calls theirs the “Crossroads Classic;” Iowa named it the “Big 4 Classic.”
Obviously, there’s a lot of food for thought about who the other two schools invited should be. DePaul and SIU should be the clear cut favorites, but to get into all the problems those programs are having, which would make their selection questionable, is another discussion for another time.
However, something needs to be done, because people aren’t showing up to see SEC and Pac 12 schools, and Illini basketball should try something new in marketing to Chicago; like the football team is doing.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc.
You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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