1. An Investigation of Pregame Entertainment: A Professional Football Context
An Analysis of the Philadelphia game experience
Jacob Pederson, Haley Rockweiler, and Tomás Benzo | Dr. Scott Swanson | Management & Marketing Department
Purpose
Findings
This report discusses the perceptions of entertainment experienced by spectators attending games at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles. Specifically this report investigated potential differences in experiences between season ticketholders and non-season ticketholders.
Methods
Using an intercept method, potential respondents were approached at a home game of the Philadelphia Eagles as asked if they would participate in this study. We obtained a total of 344 completed questionnaires.
Sample Description
The findings indicate that 38.7% of the 344 respondents were season ticketholders, and the majority of respondents (58.1%) had a bachelor's degree. The average household income was just over $98,000, with men being slightly more likely to have participated in the study (52.9%). Respondents had been attending home games for an average of years, which ranged from 1 to 70 years. Ages ranged from 18 and 82 years with a mean of almost 39 years old. The majority respondents (62.6%) reported not having children at home.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Preview to Results
- Everyone enjoys going to the game
We had conducted a number of statistical routines using SPSS. In particular we sought to identify potentially statistically significant relationships based on type of spectator: if they were a season ticket holder or not. The only major differences we saw came in the level of satisfaction of the halftime show. Season ticket holders tended to rate the show lower than non-season ticketholders. However, we did identify a number of demographic differences.
After looking through all the data we found only a few significant differences. Season ticketholders tend to be older, by 5.5 years. They tend to have a higher household income by $45,000. Season ticket holders have on average been attending games for almost 15 years, 8 more years than non-season ticket holders. They also tend to go with relatives more often than non-season ticket holders. This group is also dominated by men, 60% of season ticket holders were male. Season ticket holders were also found to rate the halftime show lower, and their overall satisfaction with attending the games higher, than non-season ticket holders.
One thing to note is that overall the half time show is ranked rather low. It is the lowest entertainment metric we measured with an average score of 3.76 out of 5. This could be due to the fact that 1) it is not very entertaining in general, or 2)many people don't care too much about the halftime show. Halftime is traditionally the time people get up and use the restroom, get refreshments and stretch their legs. Overall, our findings suggest that most spectators are enjoying the entertainment aspects of the game and really buying into the full experience of attending the game so we believe that no drastic changes need to be made to any entertainment aspect in particular.