Yesterday was the first game I've seen at Wintrust, but the third time I've been there. So some of the the newness of the place has worn off. Here are my thoughts:
Good:
- The scoreboard. Four large, high-def video boards, with stats shown on the smaller boards between them. They are a huge upgrade from the awful scoreboard situation at AA.
- The original plan was to sink the court below street level and have people enter at the top of the main level. I love that concept. Unfortunately it ended up being cost prohibitive, but they kept the idea of people entering the seating bowl at the top of the main level. So you enter the building and immediately take an escalator up. I still love having people enter at the top of the seating bowl, but this application doesn't work as well, especially if there were a big crowd.
- The main level concourse is very nice, it's spacious with a view of the court.
Not so good
- Some people like the open, airy feel, but it's not really my thing. I prefer a more enclosed seating bowl. I expect the new WRA to be much closer to my preference here.
- The generic feel, as someone else mentioned. I'm not sure if this is because it's so new or because it's not entirely DePaul's arena so maybe they need to keep it more neutral in decoration.
- The balcony concourse is kind of cramped. And is there really only one escalator to the balcony? The place reminded me a bit of Ryan Field in that the crowd flow is fine when it's 1/3 empty, but would be pretty congested with a capacity crowd.
Mixed
- The crowd. I was pleasantly surprised by the share of NU fans in attendance. But the overall crowd size, 7k in the box score, was underwhelming. I guess I should give DePaul some time to build back their fan base after AA basically killed it. But I think the cost study on WA said DePaul needs to average 9.5k for the City to break even on their games. Good luck with that...
