Illinois Fighting Illini Playing With A Homecourt Disadvantage

The Illinois Fighting Illini have a unique home-court disadvantage to begin the 2015-16 basketball season.

Illinois’ first five home games will be played in Springfield, Ill. The Illini will return to their newly renovated State Farm Center when they host the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Dec. 2 as a part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Until then, the Illini will call Illinois’ state capital their home.

Springfield is one hour and 21 minutes away from Champaign, which makes it difficult for students to attend home games. If the university were to provide a fan bus, it would likely make students more willing to go, depending on the costs. Illinois may not have justified a bus for students due to the cost of the bussing and the number of students who would go.

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It’s not just the student component that makes it a home-court disadvantage, however.

Springfield’s location isn’t necessarily the best for maximum-capacity Illinois crowds. Bradley University, located in Peoria, Ill., and Illinois State University, located in Normal, Ill., are both roughly one hour and 10 minutes from the state’s capital. With the Illini moving games closer to these two markets, it makes for a tough draw with less Illini fans in the area.

It also moves games closer to St. Louis, which translates to even more diversity in college fandom.

The Prairie Capital Convention Center has a capacity of 7,700 for basketball games. That is less than half of the 16,618 seats that the State Farm Center has to offer in Champaign. Not only are the Illini missing the impact of a raucous student section, they are drawing less than half of their capacity crowd if they were to sell out.

Illinois’ first two regular season games against North Florida and North Dakota State drew an average of 5,259 fans. Both teams made the NCAA tournament last year after winning their respective conferences. On the opening night of the regular season, Bradley drew a crowd of 6,553, which is 1,367 more people than Illinois’ opener on the same night against North Florida.

Tickets were offered in a package priced at $250 for all five games, according to The State Journal-Register. The five games include an exhibition against Illinois-Springfield and regular season games against UNF, NDSU, Chattanooga and Chicago State.

Wonder why #Illini are having attendance problems at PCCC? You pay $118.25 for $68 worth of tickets. pic.twitter.com/YVJrfO1q7x
— Aaron Bennett (@aaron_bennett_1) November 17, 2015

Illinois tickets cost $68 for four tickets through Ticketmaster, but an additional $50.25 is billed in facility fees, service fees and an order processing fee, according to WCIA’s Aaron Bennett.

Using StubHub.com to buy tickets for Saturday’s game against Chattanooga is a secondary option, though there are limited seats available. Tickets for similar balcony seats cost $50 for two. Including additional fees, the total bill is $63.50. For a group of four on StubHub, it would cost $127 total for tickets compared to Ticketmaster’s $118.25.

There’s no real incentive for fans to drive to Springfield to watch the Illini play with these ticket prices and a subpar experience. Illinois fans are better off waiting for the Illini to return to the State Farm Center where it will be louder, there will be students and it is easier to justify the costs of traveling to Champaign.

While Illinois played two NCAA tournament teams from last year, they will have better opponents when they return to Champaign with games slated against their Big Ten rivals.

Next: Big Ten Men's Basketball Predictions

The 1-1 Illini are going to play two more games at the Prairie Capital Convention Center before returning home to the State Farm Center. On Nov. 21, the Illini host the Chattanooga Mocs and on Nov. 23 they will host the Chicago State Cougars in the first two games of the Emerald Coast Classic.

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