High School Motivation Survey

In the South, football is one of the most important things to people. Yes, college football is probably the “king” of football, but high school football isn’t far from the top. To find out why high school football is so important to people, we need to first find out what it is that draws them into the game in the first place. Is it the band, or maybe tailgating? Or might it just be the game itself. We have a survey separated into ten different possible motivations to bring people to games. This survey offers thirty-five questions that are all based scales from 1-7 (with one being the lowest interest or importance and the seven being the maximum interest or importance). The survey was offered to 60 students of the University of North Alabama, including a vast difference of high schools, mostly local, but some farther away.

The first motivation that we asked about was drama. We asked three simple questions: how much does a one-sided game interest you? How enjoyable is a game with an uncertain outcome? Is the game more interesting when it matters more for your team? Before collecting the data we felt as though this would be one of our stronger motivations to bring people into high school football games. Our data shows that the minimum for this motivation was a 2 and the maximum a seven. The mean score for this motivation was a 4.8014 meaning that it is right in the middle. A way to increase the motivation for drama would be to schedule tougher games. The survey showed that people are far less interested in a game that is very one sided. Scheduling games against teams of equal or greater skill level would encourage people to come to games because they know that they would see a better game. We have also run the correlation data between the drama motivation and the future intention to attend games. This number came out to a .479 correlation in the Pearson Correlation scale. This means that it is considered a high correlation between these two. The standard deviation for this motivation was 1.218. This means that all of the data was close together on the scale. According to this correlation, our hypothesis for the drama motivation was correct.

The next motivation that was on the survey was that of excitement. We sought to find out just how excited people were about the games. The questions that we used were: How excited do you get a high school football games? Do you get excited in the week leading up to the game? Are other elements of the game more exciting than the game itself (tailgating, band performance)? We did not expect his motivation to be as high as some of the other ones on the list. The data showed that this motivation had a mean score of 4.4124. This one is slightly less that drama was, but it is still pretty much in the middle of the pack. The Pearson Correlation showed that excitement had a .334 correlation, which is fairly weak. Some ways to increase the excitement level of a high school game would be to market the game well in the week leading up to the game, have pregame pep rallies, and create new traditions such as cheers that get fans into the game.

School pride is a very interesting motivation. Some fans care about the team and not the school while some are the complete opposite on this. We feel as though this motivation will rank among the lower rated of the other motivations. The three questions that we asked that pertained to school pride were: Do you attend games purely to support the school? Is your connection for the school the reason you like the team? Do you support the team because of it enhances the image of the team? The data shows that this motivation has a mean score of 4.6312. Just as the previously analyzed motivations, this one stays with the trend of being right in the middle of the answer choices. There is a .329 correlation for this motivation meaning that is on the weaker sider of the spectrum. There are quite a few ways that school pride could be increased. One option would be to have bonfires or parades leading up to the game. Another option that tends to reinvigorate fan bases is the changing of uniforms. College teams such as the University of Oregon in Eugene draw in fans from all over the world just because of their unique and ever-changing uniforms. School pride can also be increased by honoring former teams before or during games for their success and achievements. Seeing former glory can encourage both current and former students and get them more excited about their team.

According to Dictionary.com, a vicarious achievement is an achievement that performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another. This means that fans feel as though they are part of the team and share both the successes and failures of the team even though they may never touch the field. The overall thought from our group was that it really depends on what school the survey taker attends; some schools see football as more important than academics. In this case, people would probably tend to feel more part of the team more so than an individual from a school that doesn’t really care about athletics. The questions that we asked about vicarious achievement were: Do you feel as though you are part of the win after your team is victorious? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment after your team wins? How upset are you after your team loses? The data shows that the mean score for this motivation was 4.1277. This happens to be one of the lower mean scores for all of the motivations. The Pearson Correlation for this motivation is .442. We found it interesting that the mean score was one of the lower stats but that the correlation was actually among the higher of all of the motivations recorded. One way to increase this motivation would be to find ways for fans to be able to meet players. This could be done by holding fundraisers, meet and greets with the team, or postgame meetings. Several high school coaches encourage (and sometimes force) players to go meet fans immediately after the game. Getting to know players tends to make people care about the team more which, in turn, makes them feel as though they are part of the team. Other ways is having younger student fan clubs that run onto the field with the team before a game. Another possibility would be to hold open practices for fans to come watch, though this has to be monitored to make sure that other teams have not sent people to come watch practices.

The next motivation that was on the survey was wholesome environment. A wholesome environment is one that provides a good community atmosphere and provides an overall sense of warmth. To find out more about wholesome environment, we asked the following questions: Do you attend games because they are good clean fun? How important is the family atmosphere to the enjoyment of the game? Would you enjoy the game if there was a lack of family/community feeling surrounding it? Since only college students took this survey, we really didn’t feel as though good clean fun or a family environment would be their reason for coming to high school football games. However, the data that we collected said otherwise. Wholesome environment finished with the fourth highest mean score of the ten motivations with a score of 4.7234. Apparently, it is important for college students that they have a homey environment during a high school football game. The correlation for this motivation was fairly weak at only .369. Some ways to preserve a wholesome environment for a high school game would be to check bags as people enter (to prevent alcohol or other illegal substances from ruining someone’s experience), have games and treats for the younger patrons, and to encourage sportsmanship by players and fans.

College students tend to travel in packs everywhere that they go, whether it is to the movies, to go eat, or just to walk around. This brings up the next motivation, bonding with friends. We feel as though people tend to go to games to hang out with friends. This might be slightly less popular among college students going to high school games together. High school students definitely go to games with their friends on a very frequent basis. To discover exactly if this brought individuals to games, we asked the following questions: How important is it that you attend games with your friends? Do you enjoy games more when your friends accompany you? Do you see games as quality time spend with your friends? The mean score for this motivation came back with a score of 5.7092. This was the highest mean score of any of the ten motivations by nearly nine-tenths of a point. These statistics show that it is definitely important for students to attend games with friends, and show that they find the game far more interesting when they are there with friends. The correlation with future attendance for this motivation showed that bonding with friends only had a correlation of .298, which is very weak. This means that yes, people come to games with friends, but it is not one of the main reasons that will bring them back to games in the future. Some ways to increase the bonding with friend’s motivation would be to have ticket deals such as buy one ticket and get a second one half price could encourage people to bring a friend with them. Also the use of social media groups could help encourage people to join friends in going to games. Facebook groups can be created that will indicate whether or not someone plans on attending a game, this will help someone decide if they are going because they will be able to see who is going to the game. This is a motivation that is already very high, but it can never hurt to even further improve on it since it obviously brings people to games.

The next motivation on our survey was entertainment value. With this we tried to find out if people feel like they got their money’s worth when attending high school football games. The questions that we asked for this motivation were: Do you get your money’s worth at a high school football game? Would you still attend games if the current price was doubled? Would you attend your high school’s football game instead of another event of the same price? We felt as though the people who took this survey would find the price reasonable and well worth the money no matter what other motivations brought them to the game. The reported mean score for entertainment value calculated to 4.0426. This was a very low number compared to the others, in fact, it was ninth on the list of the ten motivations. This indicates that the price of the game really wasn’t the reason that people have been coming to games. The correlation for this motivation showed that .453 which is the second highest of any of the motivations. So this means that people don’t go to games for the price, but it will affect them in coming back in the future because it will make them more willing to come back over other motivations. Some ways to improve upon entertainment value would be to add other elements to game experience other than the game itself. Maybe a tailgate party or meet and greet with players will encourage people to spend their money at the high school football game instead of other events of equal or lesser value. Also, playing in more important games against higher quality opponents would make the games more worth its money. People would rather pay $7 for a game that is highly competitive and goes down to the final game instead of paying the same amount for a game that is not close at all. Also, some teams have included coupons to local restaurants in the reverse side of a ticket. Simple things like these can encourage people to come to a game again instead of a movie or going bowling.

It is almost guaranteed that if an individual goes to a high school football game they will talk to someone that they don’t know, whether this person is in the line at the concession stand or if they end up sitting near them in the bleachers. When people gather for a game, they have some similarities between them that they can talk about during the game. The next motivation that was on our survey was socialization. According to Dictionary.com, socialization is a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior and social skills appropriate to his or her social position. The short way of putting this would be to say that an individual tends to talk to people at games. To find how important socialization was at high school football games, we asked the following questions: How important is it for you to interact with other fans a games? How many people have you befriended at games? Do you enjoy talking to fans who sit around you? The mean score for this data came out to a fairly high score of 4.6525. This ranks socialization as one of the middle motivations that brings people to high school football games. This is different than bonding with friends because it indicates that you don’t already know the people that you are talking to and did not come to the game with this person. The correlation between future intention to attend games and socialization was .438 which is among the higher of the motivations. Some ways to increase socialization would be to by advertising more on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. One option would be to have a time during the game where everyone is encouraged to take a “selfie” with someone that they don’t know and sent it to the teams social media pages, they could then select a winner for a special prize. This would encourage people to come out of their comfort zone and talk to new people.

High school sports have been seen as good family bonding time for many years, and high school football is no exception. Whether someone is going a game to sit with a family member or if they are watching a relative play in the game, many people go to game for family related reasons. To find out just how important family bonding is to individuals, we asked the following questions: How important is it that you are able to bond with your family during games? Do you attend games because you are related to someone who plays on the team? Does attending the game with your family make it more enjoyable? The data collected shows a mean score of 4.6099 which is one of the higher of the motivations. Though this is already high, a way to raise this could be to let parents of players enter games for free. This shouldn’t just be limited to parents of players, parents of both band members and cheerleaders could be offered free admission. If they were admitted for free, they might be willing to pay for other people to come with them since they did not have to pay for a ticket into the game. Another way to increase this would be to add family package deals for larger families. Children under a certain age should also be admitted in to the game for free. Simple things such as these will certainly increase the amount of people attending games with family.

The last of the motivations is about interest in certain players. Liking a team because of a star player is very common in some of the bigger leagues such as the NBA and NFL. Some examples of this would be people only going to Cleveland Cavaliers games to see Lebron James or people attending Denver Broncos games just to see Peyton Manning. While creating our survey, we wondered if this was also a popular reason for coming to games at the high school level. Maybe it is, because some people want to come watch players that are being highly recruited by some of the larger schools in the nation. It might seem like a big deal for these individuals so that they can say that they saw that player while he was in high school before he made it big. To discover if this was the case we asked these questions: Do you watch the game because of an individual player more than the rest of the team? Do you attend games only to watch your favorite player? Are you more of a fan of the individual rather than the whole team? Our data shows that this is not a major reason that people go to high school football games because it came in at dead last wish a mean score of only 3.4043. This was the only motivation that had a mean score that was in the 3 range, the rest were all in either 4 or even 5. The correlation of individual players and future intention to come to games was also dead last, in fact, it was the only negative correlation at -.182. There is no correlation at all between these two. According to this data, fans prefer to watch a team rather than an individual player. Honestly, this is the way that high school sports are meant to be, therefore there is no way that this should be increased.

In conclusion, there are a vast number of reasons that a person can be motivated to come to a high school football game. Some of the most popular ones (according to our survey) were the drama of the game, socialization, bonding with friends, and wholesome environment. On the flipside, the lowest of the motivations were interest in an individual player, entertainment value, and vicarious achievement. In this survey, we also tried to find out how much a correlation there was between the individual motivations and the future intention to attend games. The motivations with the highest correlation were drama, socialization, and entertainment value. The lowest correlations were that of individual player interest, bonding with friends, and school pride.