DePaulia
The
2017 Pacemaker Award Winner/Best Weekly College Newspaper-SPJ
Volume #102 | Issue #17 | Feb. 26, 2018 | depauliaonline.com
ANDREW HATTERSLEY | THE DEPAULIA A lone fan sits in the Demon Deck during DePaul’s men’s basketball game against St. John’s on Feb. 14.
THAT EMPTY FEELING
Despite move to city, men’s basketball attendance remains low By DePaulia Investigation DePaul’s debut basketball season in the South Loop has been rough — the team is currently at risk of finishing dead last in the Big East standings for the eighth time in the last decade. But tough competition, injuries and streaky offense aren’t the only ghosts to follow the Blue Demons to Wintrust Arena. Since moving from a cavernous 17,000 seats at Allstate to a cozy 10,000 at Wintrust, DePaul’s men’s basketball team is still struggling to fill the stands, continuing to rely heavily upon ranked opponents and traveling fans to draw sizable crowds. Through DePaul’s home game against Creighton on Feb. 7, the Blue Demons had drawn an average of 2,993 people to their games, including two that saw fewer than 1,000 people, according to attendance numbers obtained by The DePaulia through a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) from the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (commonly known as “McPier”), the quasi-governmental agency that partnered with the university to build and operate Wintrust. Despite expectations that bringing the Blue Demons into the city would attract more fans to home games, attendance at Wintrust has seen just a modest uptick with only three games eclipsing half capacity, including Saturday’s game against
Marquette (about 5,000). Last season at Allstate, DePaul saw some of the lowest attendance numbers in program history, averaging less than 2,000 in turnstile attendance. Turnstile attendance refers to the number of people who actually show up to each game. Attendance figures reported in the final box scores at DePaul games refer to paid attendance, which measures the number of people who bought or received free tickets whether or not they actually enter the arena on game day. Through Creighton’s visit to Wintrust on Feb. 7, the Blue Demons are averaging just under 6,000 in paid attendance, another modest increase from Allstate where they averaged under 5,500 in paid attendance. Early estimates calculated by HVS, a New York City based sports and entertainment consulting firm hired by McPier when the Wintrust project began, projected DePaul’s men’s basketball team would account for less than 50 percent of annual turnstile attendance at Wintrust. The firm projected an average attendance of 9,500 at 16 DePaul men’s basketball home games, totaling 152,000 of the arena’s 370,000 projected attendees. DePaul’s athletic director, Jean Lenti Ponsetto, said DePaul had nothing to do
See WINTRUST, page 27
ALLY ZACEK | THE DEPAULIA