Attendance motivators and constraints: A Division III fall sports inquiry

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this work was to better understand Division III fall sport attendance through a game attendance model with motivations and constraints. Results indicated Achievement, Player Behavior, and Lack of Knowledge predicted attendance. There were also significant differences between the four sports on 7 of 17 variables, as field hockey predominantly differed from the other sports. The findings of this work indicated that there are both similarities and differences to past research of other levels and types of sports. These results should encourage the Division III sport managers from this study to develop a similar promotional strategy for the comparable sports (i.e. men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball) to retain and increase attendance while maximizing their limited resources. Theoretical implications are explored, and results indicated that attendance may not be a dichotomy, but certain variables may exist on a spectrum and act as motivators and constraints.

KEYWORDS:

• sport attendance
• Division III
• college sports
• attendance motivators
• attendance constraints
• soccer
• volleyball
• field hockey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.