Research Description

Dimensions of Market Demand: Associate Intercollegiate Women’s Division II Soccer Games

Soccer has become a popular sport, particularly among American youth and college students. Today, over 1,000 colleges or universities have a varsity soccer program and there are more female teams than males. Although the increasing trend of women’s soccer teams on college campuses is promising and pleasing, they usually receive less recognition, have smaller audiences, and fewer perks than men’s team. Most of these teams are struggling financially due to lack of game attendance, sponsorships, sales of media products, and sales of licensed merchandise. To attract spectators, it is necessary for teams to identify those variables that may affect the spectator decision to attend games. The purposes of this study are three folds: (a) to identify dimensions of market demand related to intercollegiate women’s soccer games and develop a conceptual framework, (b) to develop a scale to measure these dimensions, and (c) to examine the relationships of the market demand factors to game consumption level.

Over the past decade, there has been a decline in consumer interest in spectator sports when compared to other forms of entertainment. At the same time, there has been a rapid increase in competition in the sport market place (Patterson, 2004). To overcome competition in the sports industry, it is important for the marketer to understand the concept of market demand. Market demand is related to consumer expectations towards the attributes of the core product (Zhang, Lam, & Connaughton, 2003). Although findings of previous market demand studies are helpful to understand consumer expectations for intercollegiate sports, some market demand variables might not be specifically relevant to marketing issues that are unique to the intercollegiate women’s soccer games. Through a comprehensive review of literature and conducting interviews with coaches, athletes, and spectators, a conceptual framework of market demand will be developed for studying consumer behavior issues of intercollegiate women’s soccer games.