CHAMPAIGN — Two years after a feasibility study indicated Illinois could add another revenue-generating sport with the addition of a men’s ice hockey program, athletic director Josh Whitman saw the process in the “red zone” and was gearing up for a potential announcement that would alter the landscape of Illini athletics.
That was last March. Pre-pandemic.
Instead of potentially announcing hockey in April 2020, Whitman was putting those discussions on the back burner and hoping it was “a short-term pause and not a long-term no.”
The pause has been lifted 15 months later. Conversations about hockey at Illinois will at least restart this month and next.
Clarity on the full scope of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is the first step for Illinois. Whitman said Wednesday that the total loss of revenue for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics would be between $12 million and $18 million. Better than expected, but still a burden to overcome. He also said the DIA’s partners in hockey, which included the city of Champaign and local businesses, would need to evaluate the same aspect.
But the idea of Division I hockey at Illinois and the potential new downtown Champaign arena will be revisited.
“I don’t want to put a timeline on when we may or may not have any additional information on that, other than just to say it remains a topic,” Whitman said. “We had walked it so far down the road we can’t just walk away from it without at least reopening the conversation and seeing if it continues to make sense. We’ll see where that conversation goes over the next several months.”
Illinois has made an investment in hockey — if only in time and effort — since the spring 2018 feasibility study conducted by College Hockey, Inc., in conjunction with the NHL and NHLPA indicated the sport could be a success in Champaign. The promise of multiple seven-figure gifts later that year only furthered the Illini’s efforts to add the sport.
Now, the entire project must be reevaluated through a post-pandemic lens. Not to mention an NCAA landscape that could be drastically altered depending on the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision on Alston vs. NCAA and how name, image and likeness could affect college athletics.
“We were very, very close to green lighting hockey,” Whitman said. “There’s no question about that. Because of how close we were, I feel obligated to restart the conversations and reassess and see where are we at this point. … What I don’t feel is obligated to do it. The pandemic, if nothing else, has given us flexibility to figure out what makes sense in this new space.”
The ebb and flow of participating hockey schools nationally could also play a part in Illinois’ decision. Alaska Anchorage just played its final season as a Division I program, and Robert Morris announced in April it was cutting both its men’s and women’s teams. That will leave 60 Division I men’s hockey programs compared to 354 in men’s basketball.
“Based on our initial analysis, we had determined that hockey could be a revenue sport for us,” Whitman said. “We think it would be the third revenue sport after football and men’s basketball. We’re hopeful our fans would embrace it and we would be able to see it as a driver of attendance and engagement with our fans. That does change if the number of teams participating drops dramatically. That is something we would have to monitor and take into account.”
The initial financial outlay to add hockey at Illinois was projected at more than $50 million. That was a combination of building a new arena and the startup costs associated with the program. That proposed downtown arena was also meant to be a new home for Illinois volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics. Some internal DIA changes about the long-term facility needs for wrestling and gymnastics could shrink the budget with a smaller arena.
“We had intentionally not taken any cash for hockey,” Whitman said. “We had a lot of commitments — people who were committed to helping us fund it when and if we were ready to — but because it was uncertain we said, ‘Once we’re ready, then we’ll come to you and start to receive some of the funds.’ We know where we think the money was. We just need to go back and see if it’s there or not.”
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