Attendance Policy: Students blame team's poor performance, city life for lack of interest

Take a second and imagine stepping into a large, on-campus athletic arena to watch your Blue Demons play high-flying, high quality basketball against the best schools in the country. Imagine packing the stands with all of your best friends, jumping up and down when the home team makes a three-pointer or slams down a thunderous dunk.

A few decades ago, this was the scene at a DePaul basketball game, when coach Ray Meyer paced up and down the sidelines and superstar Mark Aguirre dominated the competition night after night. The Blue Demons were once a perennial contender in college basketball and the on-campus Alumni Hall was rocking when DePaul took to the court.

These days, things are quite different for the once-proud Blue Demons, who have struggled through most of the last two decades and alienated a fan base that has lost interest in the team's affairs.

"There are a lot of problems, but it starts with the team's performance," said junior Baber Munir. While students do lament the location of the Allstate Arena, where the Demons play, the main point of contention remains that the team just isn't that good. Since the 2005-2006 season, DePaul has posted a 57-119 record, good for a subpar .323 winning percentage.

When told that ESPN called DePaul a "perennial Big East doormat" in their coverage of a game against Seton Hall, Munir responded, "I can't complain with that. They're not lying."

Another reason that students fail to connect with the Blue Demons is the success and tradition surrounding the numerous professional sports teams that reside in Chicago.

"The fact that we have the Bulls, the Cubs and the [White] Sox, I'd rather see them play than a very poor basketball program," junior Nathanial Garcia said. Garcia plays for the DePaul men's club volleyball team and says that DePaul basketball has "no buzz whatsoever…since I've gone to DePaul I've been watching college basketball less and less."

Attendance has been lacking for years. In the 1997-98 season, average attendance at DePaul home games plummeted to just 3,634 fans per game: its lowest point between the 1980-81 and 2010-11 seasons.

Last season, the average overall attendance per game was just 8,235 fans. Compare this to Big East rival Louisville, which brought in 21,233 fans to the KFC Yum! Center to watch the Cardinals rout the Blue Demons 76-59 on Jan. 15.

"Anybody who goes to our games is kind of embarrassed," Munir said. Allstate Arena can hold upwards of 18,500 fans and can't even fill up halfway on game day. When DePaul plays in front of a national audience on ESPN, the cameras always show the same fans jumping up and down because there are really no other options. The upper bowl of the arena is barren game after game.

From 1973 to 1992, the Blue Demons went 414-149, cementing their status as one of the elite programs in all of college basketball. Many of those seasons came under the leadership of Hall of Fame coach Ray Meyer, whose son Joey enjoyed some success as well. Attendance was high and Chicago loved the Blue Demons.

But ever since a 3-23 record in 1996-1997, DePaul basketball hasn't been the same. DePaul then joined the prestigious Big East Conference in 2005 and simply didn't stack up, becoming an easy target for other Big East teams in less than a decade.

For DePaul junior Aditi Acharya, the dwindling attendance is not a result of poor play, but the lack of social incentive. "I feel like DePaul lacks school spirit as a whole, and there is no motivation to go to games," Acharya said. "It's not a state school where if you were to go to a game, it would be with a group of friends and it would be an opportunity to mingle and meet new people."

Acharya noted that Chicago's vibrant city life is a personal playground that may offer more enjoyable experiences than DePaul basketball games. "Once you've realized that you have other options, there's not much the school can do to convince you that sitting in a gym for two hours is optimal social time," Acharya said. Acharya suggested that DePaul target freshmen and show how attending games will strongly benefit social connections, but said that there "[isn't] much DePaul can do now to make me start attending."

Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto says that attendance is lacking simply because there are so many other activities to engage in at DePaul and around Chicago.

"I've been around for 30 years and I'd challenge anyone who wants to call it ‘student apathy.' DePaul is a really unique school in that it combines students who work very hard, have part-time jobs, and commute each and every day. DePaul inherently creates a unique situation for students. Things like commuting and night classes make it hard for students to get to the games. It's not necessarily because they don't want to go."

DePaul junior Douglas Davenport said that he has only heard a handful of compliments about the current team, which presently holds its first winning record since the 2006-2007 season. "Whenever I hear good things about the team, it's always about how good they used to be," Davenport said. "DePaul isn't really a sports school. It might've been when they were good, but the nerds rule the campus now."

While Davenport is a fan of DePaul's promotional giveaways, such as free pizza for the first 50 fans to attend the DePaul vs. Pittsburgh game, he noted that it would take more than a free t-shirt for him to attend, even with free admission for DePaul students. "Also, I'd like to see the home team win," Davenport added.

Ponsetto, though, doesn't think the attendance is a direct result of the team's poor play. "We haven't had a great stretch lately but when I look at the other side of the equation I see the excellence of the women's team. Their attendance hasn't been great even though the team has been. We struggle with that, and I think it shows that the men's team isn't necessarily a victim of poor play."