Transcript 2012 AAHPERD NBA Poster

Factors Affecting Spectators’ Decisions in Attending NBA Home Games
AAHPERD National Convention, Boston, Massachusetts (March 16, 2012)
1
Eddie T.C. Lam ,
1Cleveland
Siu-Yin
State University,
Introduction
Previous studies indicated that four factors were
significantly predicative of overall NBA attendance:
game promotion, home team, opposing team, and
schedule convenience (Zhang, Pease, Hui, &
Michaud, 1995). Fans are more prone to attending
NBA games when identity salience and satisfaction
are enhanced by the game/arena experiences
(Laverie & Arnett, 2000). Game attractiveness and
marketing promotion variables have also generally
been found to be positively related to game
attendance; whereas economic variables such as
ticket discount and income level have consistently
been shown to be positively related to game
consumption too (Noll, 1991; Zhang et al., 1995;
Zhang, Pease, Smith, Lee, Lam, & Jambor, 1997). In
the end, a variety of factors can influence NBA fans.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine factors
that might affect spectators’ decisions in attending
future NBA home basketball games.
2Hong
A survey package included the 14-item Decision
Information Scale and a few demographic variables
was administrated to spectators during a regular
season NBA home game in May 2009. The team
was located in a large metropolitan area in the
Midwest region of the United States. The surveys
were distributed before the start and during the
game, but were collected throughout the entire
game. Random stratified and cluster sampling
techniques were used with the attempt to cover
different sections of the arena. Item responses
were based on a 5-point Likert Scale (e.g., 1 = not at
all important, 5 = very much important).
SPSS 14 for Windows (SPSS, 2007) was used for
data analysis. One-way ANOVA and one sample ttest were used to explore the mean differences
between Demographic Information and the variables
of Decision Information. Fisher LSD tests were
used for post hoc comparisons.
Demetrius
Kong Baptist University,
3
Pearson ,
3University
Table 1: Mean and Standard Deviation of Decision
Information (N = 410)
Variables
Mean SD
p
Advertising
3.51 1.44 .000*
Direct mail and notification
Giving away/prize
Home team win/loss records
Home team league standing
Game time (evening)
Day of week (weekend)
Visiting team superstar
Home team superstars
Good seats
Ticket discount
Publicity
Home team overall performance
Visiting team overall
performance
3.13
3.71
3.98
3.99
3.85
3.74
3.65
4.24
3.99
4.01
3.58
4.08
* p < .001
Method
2
Cheung ,
1.49
1.37
1.20
1.20
1.26
1.33
1.39
1.10
1.16
1.18
1.33
1.14
.108
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
.000*
3.51 1.41 .000*
of Houston,
& Sungwon
4Texas Tech
4
Bae
University
Results
Results of one sample t-tests indicated 13 out of
the 14 items were significantly (p < .001) different
from the median score (except “Direct mail and
notification”). Univariate ANOVAs showed that
there were no significant (p > .05) differences in
decision factors between male (n = 166) and female
(n = 118) spectators. Similarly, no significant (p >
.05) differences were found among spectators with
different marital status, household size, household
income, and occupation. However, significant
differences were found among spectators with
different ethnicities (F4,402 = 4.29, p = .002) and
education levels (F7,300 = 2.93, p = .006). Post hoc
multiple comparisons indicated that Caucasians in
general had significantly lower mean scores than
those Black/African Americans (p = .001) or Indian/
Alaskan Natives (p = .033); whereas high school
graduates had significantly (p < .05) higher mean
scores than those with advanced educational
backgrounds.
Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to examine factors
that influence spectators’ decisions in attending
future NBA home basketball games. Results
indicated that home team win/loss record, star
players, and game promotion were the major
factors that attracted people to the games.
However, direct mail and notification have no
impact on game attendance. Interestingly,
Caucasians were "die-hard" fans and were less
likely influenced by those factors than people of
other ethnicity. The high score of the high school
graduates was understandable since they were not
financially
independent
and
most
game
promotional activities would be attractive to them.
Based on the results of this study, it is obvious that
the team needs to do everything in their power to
resign those star players since they are the leading
factors in fan attendance. By focusing on those
variables that yielded higher means, the team can
better plan its fan focuses for the up coming
season.