(03-03-2020 02:21 PM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-03-2020 01:29 PM)Huskies2006 Wrote:  

(03-03-2020 01:22 PM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-03-2020 10:29 AM)7 Wrote:  If NIU is really trying to attract young(ish) alumni, they'll put together party buses leaving from a bar downtown.

It’s my understanding the Fire did that very thing. Not sure if it was the stadium or team behind it. But the blueprint is already in place.

And it failed miserably.. hence paying $60 million dollars to stop playing there.

There is no way to turn this pile of lemons the athletic dept has given us into lemonade.

How did it fail miserably? Look at the attendance history for each venue -

soldier field: 15.9k (‘98-‘01, ‘03-‘05)
Naperville: 14.1k (‘02)
Seat Geek: 15.4k (‘06-‘19)

Naperville was temporary and didn't have the capacity. The problem is that the rest of the League passed Chicago bye in both attendance and performance because of bad ownership/management. That led to a toxicity around the club for the last 10 years that the new owner Mansueto is attempting to address with the relocation, rebrand and reinvestment. I was a season ticket holder for several years, but left when the ownership sucked the fun and competitiveness out the game with their toxic attitude.