Filtering by
- All Subjects: sports marketing
- Creators: Eaton, John
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
This thesis seeks to analyze the changes in how current stadiums are being funded, the public’s reaction to and perception of those financing plans and what the future might hold. Research showed that tax dollars are increasingly unpopular and teams are moving away from using public money to fund sports venues. Gathered for this report, survey data of 815 Arizona State University students supported anecdotal evidence that people within a community are relatively unhappy with the idea of their money being used to partially subsidize wealthy sports organizations’ infrastructure. Altogether, recent evidence suggests that multi-use facilities funded in majority by private wealth are more popular and generate greater economic impact for the municipality than earlier in history, when heavily subsidized venues allowed teams to take advantage of local government and created fan mistrust.
certain fan segmentations of Phoenix valley residents, at the WM Open. In 2012, Professor Michael
Mokwa, Professor John Eaton, and Professor Bradley Fay of the Department of Marketing at Arizona
State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, conducted an Economic Impact Study and a Study
regarding Attendance at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. It was a joint research study with the
ASU W.P. Carey School of Business and the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research, and
the studies were designed to 1) demonstrate the overall economic impact of the tournament on the
Phoenix area, and 2) identify the specific market segments and audience of the Waste Management
Phoenix Open. I used this study as base research to conduct further analysis of the fan segmentation of the
Waste Management Open. I completed two projects: an ‘Initial Project’, and a ‘Secondary Project’, which
analyzed different aspects of fan groups and average fan spending figures.
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The goal of this report is to draw upon the fan clusters (outlined in the initial report) to further
characterize the six unique groups of Phoenix valley residents, calculate out how much revenue each fan
group is responsible for generating, and link the potential return on the investment of WM Open
advertising. This study added the average spending figures (collected by the ASU 2012 Economic impact
study (Mokwa, Eaton, Fay 2012)) and habits to the established market segments. With further analysis, it
was possible to link the advertisement efforts and determine if the current advertising and marketing
strategy fits the different fan segments that attended the tournament. The analysis includes the average
spending of each fan segmentation, critique of the current marketing and advertising efforts, and an
overall study of the WMPO marketing model using the 2016 Advertising and Marketing report along with
sales figures from Communication Links.
This thesis is a marketing plan for a theoretical, potential expansion franchise that would be in San Antonio, Texas and be a part of the National Football League (NFL). There were five topics of marketing features which assist in planning an expansion franchise joining a professional sports league I wanted to cover: competitive analysis, customer analysis, target market identification, external environment, and SWOT analysis. In relation to the five topics, I was able to construct a Qualtrics Survey from a few hundred business students from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. This was necessary to determine demographics and collect data on what a random group would think of the five topics I chose in relation to an expansion team and the effects the expansion team could theoretically have in correspondence with all factors of a professional sports franchise. In conclusion, I was able to determine San Antonio would be able to sustain and have a NFL franchise whenever the time would be right to do so.
Student sections at college sporting events are an integral part of the collegiate experience. They provide a heightened atmosphere and passion that professional teams can not always attract. They are an exciting social event for students to be a part of a larger community. The student section also represents a new potential market base for athletic departments. If students don't go to games, they have less of an emotional attachment when it comes to giving back to their alma mater in their peak earning years. (Dodd, 2022). Therefore, it is vital to understand the factors that influence a student’s intention to return to future games and, in recent years, the decline in student attendance. There are many variables that contribute to student attendance, so a study was developed to attempt to predict a student’s intention to return to future Arizona State University basketball games. There are multiple factors that are considered when determining the attendance such as the demographics of the student or their level of fandom. In addition, other factors such as social media use can influence a student’s intention to return. A statistical analysis was performed to determine which of these factors are most important in order to build a model to predict intention to return. An exploratory factor analysis will be used to determine which variables of the survey are correlated and measure similar factors. Then regression techniques will help analyze each independent variable to determine their importance and relevance. Through these techniques, it was found that satisfaction of stadium factors, sport club participation, on-campus housing, athlete’s social media, and total attendance positively impact attendance while importance of stadium factors, interest in fan loyalty programs, and employment status negatively impact attendance. The following report will include details of the analysis. The model that was developed will help universities narrow the potential variables that impact student attendance to assist in future research.