Rahm: New DePaul Stadium 'Essential'

Rahm: New DePaul Stadium 'Essential'

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said DePaul’s proposed new stadium that would cost taxpayers $100 million was “essential” to the city. 

DePaul, a school that did not even average 3,000 fans a game last season in attendance and has only won seven games combined in the last five years in Big East play, is a private Catholic school that turned down offers to play rent free at the United Center. 

Speaking at the 2013 Intersport Activation Summit in Chicago on Thursday, Emanuel said he was going to “make sure that DePaul has a facility in the city” and that DePaul’s stadium was “essential to the city’s quality of life and economic development.”

According to Sports Business Journal, Emanuel noted that the “Big Ten basketball tournament will come to Chicago every other year” and the city wanted to land more of those types of events.

Chicago, meanwhile, is broke and closing 50 public schools because of budget shortfalls.

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