DePaul Basketball Struggles with Attendance at New Wintrust Arena

Unsurprisingly (to us at least) Depaul struggles to fill their new Wintrust arena (via DePaulia):

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.

While this is only one of the tenants - it was meant to be the primary tenant.  Curious to see if things improve.  A good basketball team would help!