Depaul games not moving to United Center
DePaul University has turned down a 10-year, rent-free offer to move Blue Demons basketball to the United Center in favor of pursuing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to build a new basketball arena near McCormick Place.
“We gave them our best shot,” Rocky Wirtz, co-chairman of the United Center’s executive committee, told the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday. Wirtz had the conversation with DePaul representatives about a month ago but said nothing until asked about the situation this week.
Wirtz said the United Center representatives had offered rent-free space, 100 percent take of the gate, a 10-year term and help from the Blackhawks, Bulls and United Center staff in marketing their team and the games. Wirtz is also an investor in Sun-Times parent company Wrapports.
“We thought it would be a great way to recruit players from Chicago,” Wirtz said, noting that this past week’s Big 10 play at the United Center was a “great experience.”
A United Center source close to the negotiations said, “Concessions and parking would have stayed with us — no different than any other tenant. They said, ‘It’s not really rent-free. We have to pay some of our expenses, like ushers and security.’ They obviously didn’t think it was so extraordinary. They decided to turn it down to explore the McCormick Place option.”
United Center officials made public months ago their hopes to lure the Blue Demons as a tenant, but a highranking DePaul official said the school never seriously considered the offer because the UC would not guarantee playing dates for the Blue Demons, who would have had to take a scheduling back seat to the Bulls, Blackhawks and possibly other events.
The DePaul official said the offer was viewed more as an effort to block development of another arena in the city.
“They just don’t want new competition,’’ the official said.
After struggling for years to return to its basketball heyday under legendary head coach Ray Meyer, the United Center source speculated that DePaul may prefer a smaller arena that’s easier to fill than the 20,000-seat UC.
In 1980, DePaul moved most of its basketball games away from Alumni Hall on its Lincoln Park campus to the then-Rosemont Horizon near O’Hare Airport. Student attendance has lagged in Rosemont, in part, because the arena is difficult for students without cars to get to.
For years, DePaul has been longing to bring games back to Chicago to boost attendance and the school’s ability to recruit top talent.