Evaluating Attendance at UBC Varsity Sport Events Amongst Students Living on Campus
Creators: name: El-Khatib, Luai
name: Hernas, Justine
name: Abrigo, Ivana
name: Muller, Marielle
name: Rettenbacher, Emma
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2024

description: UBC Athletics aims to increase attendance at UBC Varsity Sport Events. Previous data indicates that overall attendance remains low, especially for regular home games (UBC Athletics &amp; Recreation, 2021- 2024). However, there has been little research into the reasons why students living on campus decide not to attend games. This study focuses on determining reasons for this low attendance, specifically among UBC students who live on campus, aiming to offer solutions to boost attendance as higher turnout benefits both students and athletes (Moore, 2018). Transportation and location were noted as obstacles, especially for off-campus students (Perrault, 2016), therefore the inclusion criteria for the study addressed students who live on campus to determine what factors other than geographical location impact attendance. Previous research has highlighted that the factors predicting nonattendance vary between students who have attended a game before and those who have never attended (Mayer et al., 2017). To explore this phenomenon, the sample was further specified to include only students who had never before attended a UBC Varsity event. An online Qualtrics survey was used to explore the underlying factors contributing to the lack of attendance and propose effective strategies to boost participation. Participants were recruited through flyers posted around the UBC Vancouver campus and Instagram story posts. The inclusion criteria comprised UBC students (any year-level/faculty) who live on campus, and have never attended a UBC Varsity Sport Event before. Following this, data analysis was performed to understand the most common barriers to attendance, and potential ideas to increase attendance. The qualtrics survey resulted in 84 responses with zero incomplete submissions. Most participants (99%) were UBC students and 71% of them lived on campus. 57% had never attended a UBC Varsity Festival Event and 52% to a regular season Varsity Sport Game. Participant demographics showed that most were in their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year, with 73% being domestic students and 27% being international students. The primary reasons for nonattendance were found to be lack of time, being unaware of games, having conflicting school commitments and not having anyone to go with. Participants agreed that higher promotion of games and dates, interactions with the athletes, prizes, and incentives like rewards programs would increase attendance. Findings align with previous literature on attendance barriers, emphasising the lack of awareness of event schedules. Limitations like a small sample size and lack of comparison groups might have constrained generalizability, and future research may benefit from adopting more inclusive criteria when recruiting participants to help increase external validity of the findings. Recommendations to UBC Athletics to boost attendance at Varsity sport events encompass focusing on promotion efforts, establishing regular meeting spots for attendees to gather before games, creating opportunities for interaction with Varsity athletes, and providing incentives (i.e. rewards programs). Promotion should utilise posters in high-traffic areas and social media while interactions with athletes would include contests and meet-andgreets. Finally, organising regular meeting spots before games aims to address concerns about people not having anyone to go with. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”