Fans vs. Spectators: An Analysis of Those who Attend Intercollegiate Football Games

Abstract

During the 2001 college football season more than 40 million individuals attended intercollegiate football games across the four divisions sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Although it would be easy to classify all of these individuals as either being spectators or fans, that would be in accurate. Trail, Robinson, Gillentine, and Dick (2003) developed a model based on the relationship between motives and points of attachment that classified attendees as either spectators or fans. The purpose of this study was to use the model to determine how individuals who attend college football games should be classified at the four NCAA divisions of college football. Data were collected from spectators at games at the the four different NCAA college football divisions. A MANOVA was performed on the motive factors and on the points of attachment factors proposed by Trail et al., using the division level as the independent variable. Results indicated that there was some support for the Trail et al. model. In general, Division I attendees have motives and points of attachments that are consistent with what Trail et al. (2003) classified as a fan characteristics. Division III attendees have motives and points of attachment that are consistent with what Trail et al. (2003) classified as spectator characteristics. Division II and I-AA have motives and attachment indicative of both fans and spectators. Discussion of the results and suggestions for future research are presented.

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