DeKALB – It’s no secret: Attendance for Northern Illinois athletics, specifically football, continues to dip.

In six home football games at Huskie Stadium during the 2017 season, NIU averaged 11,291 fans a game, down nearly 10,000 fans from five years ago, when the Huskies drew 21,000 fans in 2013.

It has been part of a nationwide trend.

Twenty-five of the 40 college football bowl games this season saw a drop in attendance from the previous season, with 13 of those games suffering double-digit percentage losses. Average attendance for bowl games this season was 40,508 – down from 41,718 in 2016-17, according to NCAA attendance figures.

“Anytime you bring thousands of people in or out of the community, it has an effect on our local restaurants and hotels,” DeKalb Mayor Jerry Smith said.

For much of the past decade, NIU football has been consistently competitive and for a majority of the 2017 season, the Huskies were in contention for the Mid-American Conference Championship. NIU boasted one of the best defenses in the country this year – defensive end Sutton Smith was a consensus All-American and quarterback Marcus Childers was named MAC Freshman of the Year. Altogether, the Huskies earned 11 All-MAC honors.

Despite all of the accolades and a winning product on the field, NIU’s home contests looked more like hyped-up high school games than anything, because of the lack of NIU fan support.

In fact, NIU defensive end Jake Hlava, who played for Batavia High School during the 2015 IHSA football championships at Huskie Stadium, said that high school title games have fared better than NIU.

Batavia also played for a title in 2017 at Huskie Stadium, and Hlava said the crowd size for the title games is impressive.

“We literally brought the whole town,” Hlava said. “It was crazy looking up there and basically seeing the whole town. That was the most fans I’ve played in front of, for sure. It was a crazy experience.”

NIU interim director of marketing and game experience, Morgan James, said NIU athletics places a strong concentration on making sure the fans who do attend games fully enjoy their experience.

“As a department, we look at our revenue-generating sports like football, and we see where our department wants to go and tailor-make our goals to that,” James said. “Attendance across college athletics and even professional sports ... it’s dipping across the industry.

“It’s something we’re trying to combat with being able to offer different things by coming to events versus staying at home and watching them.”

NIU athletics has taken multiple initiatives to improve in-game experience, James said. It hosted a few promotional giveaways during this football season, including 1,000 student T-shirts and 4,000 rally towels. NIU offered discounted ticket days for local bands and Boy Scout groups.

The Huskies added more food and beer vendors, including Pollyanna Brewing Co., Grupo Modelo and Rosati’s Pizza.

“We want to create that fear of missing out on an amazing time at NIU football,” James said. “We want to get back to Huskie Stadium being full for our fans and student-athletes.”

To combat late-season cold weather, NIU moved “The Yard” tailgate from outside to inside the Yordon Center.

“We say, ‘How can we make The Yard at NIU football be something that people want to continuously be a part of?’” James said. “We saw some pretty positive feedback from (moving The Yard inside). We heard a lot of, ‘Hey, this is something we should do next year.’”

The Yard wasn’t NIU’s only positional move. NIU athletics also switched the location of the home and away teams. NIU is located back on the west side of Huskie Stadium and the visiting school is on the east, which is in front of NIU’s student section.

“That was another change that allows fans on the west side in those premium areas, they’re now physically behind our team as opposed to the away team,” James said. “The goal coming is to always elevate the task at hand into something better.”

James, however, is in a tough position as director of marketing and game experience, a job he started in January 2017. Besides facing budget issues within his department, he is serving in an interim role.

As he approaches his one-year work anniversary, his position recently was posted on NIU’s hiring website – James obviously applied and he’s hoping to be promoted to a full-time director, a decision that’ll be made by director of athletics Sean Frazier along with other administrators.

Frazier did not respond to interview requests.

Without getting into further detail, James admitted that NIU’s schedule, specifically midweek MAC games, has hurt attendance.

“That’s a question for guys way above my paygrade,” James said of NIU’s conference schedule.

Despite the continuing dip in attendance over the past decade, James said he believes NIU athletics always will have its hardcore fans, the Huskies just need more of them.

“Our fan base is great. We always have our die-hards, who support us when it’s 80 degrees and sunny or when it’s raining sideways and blowing wind,” he said. “Ultimately, we want more butts in seats. I believe there’s always going to be a running passion for college athletics. We have to translate that into getting those fans inside Huskie Stadium.”