Marketing

Microeconomics

Football

Computer security

Archaeology

Economics

Computer science

Business

Advertising

Psychology

Preference

Ticket

Geography

Conjoint analysis

Applied psychology

Basketball

Political science

Attendance

General partnership

Medicine

Economic growth

Finance

Medical education

Sport Marketing Quarterly

Abstract: College students represent an important target market for intercollegiate athletic marketers; however, recent years have seen a nationwide trend of declining student attendance at high-profile sporting events (Cohen, 2014; Rowland, 2019). The current study examined this issue by studying the influence of constraints on student attendance. Data were collected in partnership with the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA). In total, more than 23,000 respondents from 60 NCAA Division I institutions participated in the study. Conjoint analysis was utilized to assess student attendance preferences across a set of attributes to determine the relative importance of each constraint tested. Separate analyses were conducted for both football and men’s basketball samples as well as NCAA conference tier (Power Five, Group of Five, FCS). Results indicated constraint importance varied by market segment. Of note, as passion levels among student respondents increased, importance shifted from ticket price to seat location and game day atmosphere.

Declining Student Attendance at College Sporting Events: Testing the Relative Influence of Constraints