Northwestern fired the first shot last year. This year, Illinois has fired back.
Chicago’s Big Ten Team, meet the king of Chicago. It’s a marketing war, ladies and gentlemen.
“We need to be the king of the state,” Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas told reporters after his introductory press conference in August. “We need to be the king of Chicago. We need to have a real presence Chicago.”
The problem for NU is, proximity aside, Chicago hardly bleeds purple. Due to its much smaller student body, NU has the second fewest alumni living in Chicagoland of any Big Ten school.
“They have a much stronger alumni base as far as the numbers of alums,” Phillips said of Illinois.
NU, however, hopes that it can overcome those odds by latching on to the casual college football fan living away from his or her alma mater.
“We’re trying to create interest and enthusiasm in the Chicagoland market for people to come up to Evanston to see a football, basketball or any of our sports teams play,” Phillips said. “Maybe they have an allegiance to a school, maybe they Team.”
With its one-year head start in corralling Chicago’s support, NU has already seen the effects of gaining even a small sliver of the market of the United States’ third largest city.
The Cats saw the second largest increase in attendance at football games for the 2010 season among Division I schools. NU’s attendance rose from an average of 24,190 in 2009 to 36,449 last season. Even without the Wrigleyville Classic, which drew more than 40,000 fans, NU’s attendance still increased by an average of 11,337 for its five games at Ryan Field, the fourth-largest increase in the country.
Attendance continues to grow this year with more than 28,000 fans attending the Cats’ first home game against Eastern Illinois, an increase of nearly 3,000 over last year’s home opener against Illinois State.
“The response has been tremendous,” Phillips said. “It will be over a period of time when we’ll be able to judge whether this was a successful marketing campaign or not. But the early signs have shown us over the last 12 or 18 months that it has been really there.”
Recently, Illinois expressed some displeasure at supposed comments by Fitzgerald implying that NU has higher character standards for its players.
“They (say they) don’t recruit our type of guys,” Illinois offensive coordinator Paul Petrino told reporters. “That’s pretty much calling our guys something. That would irritate me. That’s pretty much calling you, what? I don’t know. That’s calling you something. Read between the fans.”
Phillips even said NU’s and Illinois’ marketing goals aren’t mutually exclusive.
“Truthfully, I don’t think we’re competing for the same people,” Phillips said. “They’re two different institutions that are trying to attract two different markets even though they end up being in the Chicagoland