So many hot takes, haha. I live in Chicago, and even when we are bad (which is usual, though there have been precious few mentions that we were decent enough last year), there are absolutely more Illini fans than any other school here. It’s not about what shirt you choose to see during your family trip to town, lol ... it’s math. When we’re good, it’s not close.
The fact is, we have consistently let our fans down for decades. It’s fun to think there is something special about your fans and fundamentally different or worse about ours, but we packed the house in the 1980s. We packed the house during the Rose Bowl year in 2007, and we brought a good following to Pasadena. (Speaking of Chicago, that year shows how quickly the Illini fans come flowing out of the woodworks.)
Thousands and thousands of Illini fans are afraid to reinvest, and can you blame him? Yes, IL is a pro-sports state and Chicago even more so. Yes, IL gets picked over from outside schools who have less instate talent of their own. Yes, Chicago has a ton of transplants and grads of other schools, making it a melting pot. However, frankly, your fan base specifically constantly overrated every one of those things.
I don’t know or care how Iowa fans would react, but if Illinois were consistently competitive for years in a row, our fans would buy back in. Yap about all the other shit you want, but the reason for 99.9% if perceived apathy is simply that we have been so bad that our fan base has been beaten down and has a hard time buying back in. That changes with wins and wins alone.