Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

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Description
In the wide world of sports, not all fan bases are created equally—especially in the NBA. Differences in factors like tradition, history, team performance amongst teams make each fan base distinctly unique. This paper will analyze how team performance effects one component of fan behavior: home game attendance. Using win-loss

In the wide world of sports, not all fan bases are created equally—especially in the NBA. Differences in factors like tradition, history, team performance amongst teams make each fan base distinctly unique. This paper will analyze how team performance effects one component of fan behavior: home game attendance. Using win-loss data and home game attendance data for each NBA team from 2001 to 2017, I will construct statistical models to estimate how great of an impact team performance has on each team’s home game attendance. I expect each team’s fan base to respond differently to changes in their team’s win-loss record. This paper will also attempt to quantify other facts that impact attendance at NBA games, including year-to-year changes in team salary expenditures, regional income, and the number of star players playing for the team. Finally, this paper will explore the factors that affect home game attendance for specific games within a given season—things like weather, strength of opponent, and win streaks. Ultimately, the goal of this paper will be to provide NBA business analysts with resources to more precisely anticipate their team’s home game attendance. The ability to understand what motivates the behavior of a fan base is invaluable in creating a marketing strategy that drives fans to the arena. This paper will help to identify teams that are most susceptible to significant fluctuations in attendance and outline alternative strategies to positioning their product offering effectively to fans.
ContributorsSloan, Jacob Marlow (Author) / Lee, Christopher (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description

Home advantage affects the game in almost all team sports across the world. Due to<br/>COVID and all of the precautions being taken to keep games played, more extensive research is able to be conducted about what factors truly go into creating a home advantage. Some common factors of home advantage

Home advantage affects the game in almost all team sports across the world. Due to<br/>COVID and all of the precautions being taken to keep games played, more extensive research is able to be conducted about what factors truly go into creating a home advantage. Some common factors of home advantage include the crowd, facility familiarity, and travel. In the English Premier League, there are no fans allowed at any of the games; furthermore, in the NBA, a bubble was created at one neutral venue with no fans in attendance. Even with the NBA being at a neutral site, there was still a “home team” at every game. The sports betting industry struggled due to failing to shift betting lines in accordance with this decreased home advantage. With these leagues removing some of the factors that are frequently associated with home advantage, analysts are able to better see what the results would be of removing these variables. The purpose of this research is to determine if these adjustments made due to COVID had an impact on the home advantage in different leagues around the world, and if they did, to what extent. Individual game data from the past 10 seasons were used for analysis of both the NBA and the Premier League. The results show that there is a significant difference in win percentage between prior seasons and seasons behind closed doors. In addition to win percentage, many other game statistics see a significant shift as well. Overall, the significance of being the home team disappears in games following the COVID-19 break.

ContributorsOsborne, Ashley A (Author) / Sopha, Matthew (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Description

Sports analytics is a growing field that attempts to showcase interesting aspects of a sport with the use of modern technology and machine learning techniques. This thesis will demonstrate how the NBA has progressed in the past decade by comparing the performance have five teams (SAS, OKC, PHO, MIN, and

Sports analytics is a growing field that attempts to showcase interesting aspects of a sport with the use of modern technology and machine learning techniques. This thesis will demonstrate how the NBA has progressed in the past decade by comparing the performance have five teams (SAS, OKC, PHO, MIN, and SAC). It will also provide key insight on what an NBA team should focus on to build an optimized NBA team composition, which will better their performance in the league, which will improve their chances of making into the playoffs. These teams were chosen after conducting extensive analysis on all NBA teams. These five teams were chosen because of the variability in performance (two successful and three less successful teams). Two successful teams, SAS and OKC, and three less successful teams, PHO, MIN, and SAC, were chosen to exemplify the different approaches of teams in the NBA and to distinguish what an NBA team should consider build an optimized team composition to better their performance in the league stage.

ContributorsJegadesan, Sai (Author) / Shin, Donghyuk (Thesis director) / Benjamin, Victor (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description

This creative project outlines the steps taken to successfully plan and host a fundraising event at Arizona State University. In my case, this more specifically dealt with organizing a dodgeball tournament between two friendly rivals: police officers and firefighters in the city of Phoenix. All proceeds raised from this fundraising

This creative project outlines the steps taken to successfully plan and host a fundraising event at Arizona State University. In my case, this more specifically dealt with organizing a dodgeball tournament between two friendly rivals: police officers and firefighters in the city of Phoenix. All proceeds raised from this fundraising dodgeball tournament were donated back to first responders working in the city of Phoenix.

ContributorsMinton, Sarah (Author) / Aberra, Blaine (Co-author) / Eaton, Kate (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
While basketball has been traditionally regarded as an American sport, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has gained substantial traction outside the United States over the past decade. In order to further encourage attention from international fans and increase league profit, I propose that the league adds an expansion team to

While basketball has been traditionally regarded as an American sport, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has gained substantial traction outside the United States over the past decade. In order to further encourage attention from international fans and increase league profit, I propose that the league adds an expansion team to Mexico City. I believe that through thorough market research and conscientious brand development, the team be successfully integrated into both the local community as well as the league’s current fan base. Local infrastructure, player safety, border customs, and financials were all taken into consideration into this proposal. The purpose of this project is twofold: first, to advocate for league expansion of the NBA into Mexico City through discussion and exploration of both the anticipated opportunities and obstacles, and second, to design three brand concepts and then propose a final brand concept based off of qualitative and quantitative feedback systematically collected via a survey.
ContributorsArd, Dalin Max (Author) / Montoya, Detra (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
In order to establish sustainable parity in competition year over year, all four major professional sports organizations in the United States have established a first-year draft with an order decided or influenced by their Win-Loss record the previous year. The assumption is that this draft structure should keep all teams

In order to establish sustainable parity in competition year over year, all four major professional sports organizations in the United States have established a first-year draft with an order decided or influenced by their Win-Loss record the previous year. The assumption is that this draft structure should keep all teams competitive. Rather, there is an overwhelming shift to analytical problem-solving that suggests building a winning team requires a period of losing and collecting young talent. The separation has become so apparent that it has been referred to as, “Twelve teams a-tanking.” (Boras, 2018) The trend was so pronounced this last season that the seven worst teams that held their own pick all lost by more than 15 points in the span of two days.(Sheinin, 2018) This leaves the ratio of games with a 15 point or more point differential to that of less than 15 points was 8:9 on the date described by Sheinin, as opposed to the usual ratio of 2:5 for the rest of the season. This stretch of games occurred during a pivotal time in the season and should have garnered high interest for entertainment as teams grapple for playoff position heading into the post season. Instead, viewers were treated to seven blow-out games. In this thesis, the effects of tanking will be studied as it pertains to the NBA, as a whole, losing attendance in multiple aspects. This applies directly to the value of sponsorships in the NBA. In short, this thesis will answer three of questions; (1) How does expected point spread, which is highly affected by tanking, affect NBA attendance, of all teams, down the stretch of games? (2) How can the NBA protect its sponsors from the effects of tanking? (3) How can NBA sponsors protect themselves from the effects of tanking?
ContributorsThomas, Isaiah (Author) / McIntosh, Daniel (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
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Description
The Founders Lab is a team-focused, exploratory Barrett Thesis project that allows students the opportunity to discover and utilize their “inner entrepreneur”. This project empowers teams of students to come up with a business idea; create a strategic business model; conduct research on a target market; generate a brand style,

The Founders Lab is a team-focused, exploratory Barrett Thesis project that allows students the opportunity to discover and utilize their “inner entrepreneur”. This project empowers teams of students to come up with a business idea; create a strategic business model; conduct research on a target market; generate a brand style, logo, and other marketing-related materials; meet with business professionals as a way to receive feedback; and finalize a business plan with tangible deliverables. This project in particular focuses on the creation of an app that allows users to connect with others in competitive esports tournaments and participate in tutoring sessions for financial incentives. Throughout our experience participating in the Founders Lab, we were able to construct this business pitch entitled, Eventcity.
ContributorsWandzilak, Olivia (Author) / Tefft, Austin (Co-author) / Smith, Garrison (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Pierce, John (Committee member) / Balven, Rachel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor)
Created2022-05