Loyola’s men’s soccer team draws a crowd of over 2,000 to Toyota Park

Ashley Slovinski
CMUN 332, Interviewing, Loyola University Chicago

Although Loyola didn’t shatter the NCAA Division I attendance record for a single game played in Illinois, the game held at Toyota Park on September 12, 2009, against the St. Louis Billikens was still a “huge success” according to Loyola’s ticket sales manager Brian Sisson.

The record of 4,700 fans in attendance is currently held by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Sisson said the athletic department determined this number by calling all of the Illinois Division I teams to find out what their highest attendance number was in previous seasons. Loyola hoped to surpass SIUE's record by 300, with a total crowd of 5,000 fans or more. The estimated average attendance for most Division I games in Illinois is 2,500 according to Sisson.

Although Saturday’s game against SLU only drew a crowd of 2,211 fans, it is still a giant leap from the average attendance of 300 for Loyola men’s soccer games. The largest crowd the men’s soccer team had received before this game was a little over 1,000 fans in August 2008 when Loyola played Santa Clara, a team that was ranked fifth in the nation at the time.

Out of the 2,000 fans that attended the game, roughly 1,000 were students.
“That was great,” Sisson said. He said the athletic department’s goal was to attract at least 500 students, which they were able to double.

The rest of the crowd was made up of Loyola soccer alum, faculty and staff, family and friends of both teams, and outside community members. Sisson said that 150-200 of those who attended were Chicago youth, who were sponsored by members of the Loyola community and outside fans to attend the game. The youth were from Misericordia, an organization working with children suffering from developmental disabilities, and a couple youth soccer teams from the Chicago area. The youth were able to play a short game on the field during half time.

The athletic department had been promoting the event since spring of 2009, using e-mail blasts to different soccer organizations in the Chicago and northwest Indiana areas, posters surrounding both campuses, advertisements on Loyola’s Plasma screens at both campuses, and postcards sent to soccer facilities and stores throughout Chicago. The department has already decided to make this an annual event and plans to begin promoting next year’s game at Toyota Park even sooner. Sisson said the department wants to make the game “the fall event of the season” for the men’s soccer program.
“The idea was to encourage the whole group of students who had a good time [at the game] to carry over to the rest of the season and build a core group of fans to continue through other seasons,” he said.

Sisson said that the department wanted to make this game a great experience and “more than just a soccer game, but an event.” He said the game was “positive as a whole” and hoped to grow this success throughout the future games they plan to hold at Toyota Park.