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Date: November 13, 2017

To: Mark Wharton, Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

From: Stephanie Poget, Student

Subject: Recommendation Memo for Student Attendance at Athletic Events

Attached is my report from my recent study Attracting More Students to Attend Athletic Events
at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: A Recommendation Report. I have completed
the tasks that were described in my previous research proposal. These tasks included research of
athletic departments, conducting surveys, interview focus groups, analyze collected information,
and prepare a recommendation memo.

I conducted both, primary and secondary research while completing the tasks stated in the
research proposal. To complete the primary research, I sent out a survey to the student body at
UTC as well as interviewing three students in a focus group. For the secondary research, I
searched the UTC Library online databases to find sources. Upon completion of my primary and
secondary research, I organized and analyzed the data that was collected to draft a
recommendation report.

Throughout this time of research, my findings indicated that there is not only a lack of students
attending and participation at athletic events but that students attendance has been on the decline
in recent years. Through information collected from the surveys and interviews, I was able to
conclude that the decline in student participation is recognized by the students. These students
believe there should be changes in how pregame activities are organized to ensure that students
attend more often. The students voiced some suggestions on how to attract other students to
attend the games, such as offering concerts and tailgates before the games.

I recommend that the athletic department primarily focus on better incentives that would attract
more students to show up to the sporting events. Pregame activities, such as concerts and
tailgates would be a great start, but offering these activities at all games would mean a large
portion of the athletic departments budget being spent. This change would take some planning,
but it is attainable by the UTC Athletic Department with the support of the students.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to complete this research. I look forward to working
toward a possible solution in the future. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free
to contact me, Stephanie Poget at vhr179@mocs.utc.edu or (423)123-4567.
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Attracting More Students to Attend Athletic Events at

the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga:

A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Mr. Mark Wharton

Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Prepared by: Stephanie Poget, Student

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

November 13, 2017

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

615 McCallie Ave

Chattanooga, TN 37403
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Purpose
The purpose of this memo is to report the results of the research on the topic of Student
Attendance at Athletic Events at UTC. In addition, this memo will propose a course of action
that UTCs Athletic Department can consider in order to improve the student turnout at athletic
events.

Summary
At the beginning of September, I started a research project to address the problem of the lack of
students attending athletic events at UTC. I began by performing research to better understand
how universities run their athletic departments and how athletic departments run their game days.
I used universities that are relatively the same size in student population as UTC. I also sent out a
survey to students throughout the university, 25 of which responded with completed surveys. In
addition to the surveys, I also requested students to participate in a focus group. This focus group
allowed students to communicate their opinions on the problem more in depth than just the
survey. I found that students are more inclined to attend games if they know other students who
are also going. If more students plan on attending the games the domino effect with encourage
more and more students to attend the pregame activities as well as the games.

After conducting this research, I have come to a conclusion, I will now present my
recommendation as well as my findings for your review.

To start, this report will give a brief background of the topic. Following, I will review my
research methods as well as present my findings of the research. I will then discuss the
limitations that I found through my research methods. Lastly, I will share my conclusions on the
overall research.

In the conclusion section of this report, it reports that the UTC Athletic Department is making
ways to improve how they conduct game days for students, but it still has a little way to go
before they have the full support of students. In the recommendation section, I will explain how
the Athletic Department can change their pregame activities in order to attract more students to
attend the games.

Introduction
During the 2016-2017 athletic seasons, UTCs sporting events showed fewer student supporters
than in all the previous seasons. As the university is increasingly doing well in their respective
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sports, the student athletes deserve the recognition of these achievements from their fellow
students.

Attendance and participation from the universitys students at the sporting events has declined
leaving a lack of cheering fans for the teams. While the number of students enrolled in the
university has increased and locations of the games have not changed, the number of fans in the
stands has changed. All games are free for students to attend as well as free parking or bus
transportation to and from the games.

In the current athletic season, there have already been some changes to the before game
festivities, these new activities include concerts, free food, and tailgates. Since the start of these
festivities the number of students attending pregame activities has risen but the number of those
students who actually make it into the game are still low.

It is unknown how changes to game day activities would impact the number of students in
attendance. Since the university has already implemented some changes this year and the
attendance numbers are not reflecting the new additions. This raises the question of what else can
be done to encourage students to attend pregame activities but also stay and support the team at
the game.

Research Methods
I began my research by breaking my project into the following tasks:

1. Research other schools athletic departments

2. Send out a survey
3. Put together a focus group
4. Examine the data
5. Prepare a report

In the following, I will discuss how I performed each task:

Task 1: Research other schools athletic departments

In order to increase the number of students attending the games, I needed to better understand
what has changed in recent years. I found, in a book, that universities operate their departments
as businesses (Sport as a Business). This supported my theory that the universities would be
willing to provide the athletic department with more money in their budget for incentives for
students if the sports teams are winning.

I primarily looked at:

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General articles that stated what was popular on game days

How universities operated with regards to athletic departments
Reviews and opinions of common game day activities

Task 2: Send out a survey

On November 6, I sent out an e-mail to UTCs student with a link to a short four question
survey. I explained that the survey was anonymous and would only take a few minutes to fill out.

Initially, I had a target goal of receiving 75 or more answered surveys. However, due to the time
schedule I was only able to obtain a sample size of 25. In the future of this research, I foresee the
sample size increasing to more accurately representing the student body of UTC.

Task 3: Put together a focus group

In order to create a solution to the problem, I needed to better understand more in depth what
students saw as issues. On November 6, I sent out an open call for students of the university to
volunteer to be a part of a focus group. During the focus group meeting, I asked the volunteers
why they believed there was a lack of students at the games as well as what they would see
beneficial to change.

Task 4: Examine the data

After obtaining the data from both the surveys and focus group, I looked for overlaps in the
students preferred changes and opinions on the topic. I referred to my initial research and
looked for directions on how to accommodate the students requests.

Task 5: Prepare a report

I drafted this report and made it available for a few peers to review via the UTC Learn
blackboard page. After getting comments and suggestions, I will present my final report that will
be available to the UTC Athletic Department.

Results
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In this section of the report, I will present the results of my research. For each of these tasks, I
will present the most important information that I came across.

Research other schools athletic departments:

After finding secondary research on other universities, roughly the same size as UTC, I have
discovered that these schools are struggling to attract their students to attend events due to larger
schools pulling the students to their games. With the students going to other universities for their
sporting entertainment, it lowers the attendance at the smaller universities events.

Send out a survey:

Through the survey, I found that the students did attribute the pregame activities to their decision
of attending more than only go to games if they know other people who are going to the game.

There were a variety of answers that did offer a conclusion on whether the students would like a
change in the pregame activities.

Put together a focus group:

The focus group provided the data that I not was expecting to obtain. These students reported
that they are worried about where they would go for the pregame activities more so than what the
activities were. They also reported that they would be willing to go to the activities is they were
advertised with more specific information.

Limitations of the Study:

Because of the short time span for the survey and focus group, only a small number of UTC
students responded with their participation.

Conclusions
Based on my research, I have concluded that the UTC student body is ill informed of the
necessary details of events that the athletic department puts on before the games start. In
addition, students have shown interest in more activities to have organized before games as well.
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Recommendation
I recommend the UTC Athletic Department try the following:

1. Establish a more specific form of advertising for pregame activities

The focus group indicated that they were left confused of the detail of the pregame
activities. Upon further research, I found that in past advertisements, the advertisements
are often vague and leave the reader with little information on the event. I believe by
putting more information such as time, location, and a little description of the event, the
event will be more successful.

2. Offer more pregame activities at sporting events

Based on the results of the survey, I believe that UTC should offer more large-scale
activities to persuade students to attend the games. As I found in my secondary research,
students have pointed out that concerts, tailgates, and giveaways are fun favorites for
todays pregame activities.

Works Cited
Diamond, Laura. "Regents Watching College Sports." The Atlanta Journal Constitution Mar 13
2013. ProQuest. Web.

Jozsa, Frank Paul. College sports Inc. how commercialism influences intercollegiate athletics.
Springer, 2013. Web.

Kavoura, Androniki, et al. Strategic Innovative Marketing: 4th IC-SIM, Mykonos, Greece 2015.
Springer International Publishing, 2017. Web.

Sport as a business: international, professional and commercial aspects. Palgrave Macmillan,

2014. Web.