A Study on Student’s Opinions of Developing a

Football Team at Saint Mary’s University

Abby AyotteJake Wanek

Chris Sanstead

Public Relations ResearchDecember, 2010

Research NeedsReason for project: We believe school spirit is an essential aspect to a college campus and that there is a high correlation between school football teams/games and school unity.

We wanted to explore current Saint Mary’s students’ opinions on school spirit and research what students think the effects establishing a football team would have on our campus.

Main Clients at Saint Mary’s:

-Athletic Director-Nikki Fennern -Vice President of Student Life-Chris Kendall-Vice President of Admissions-Tony Piscitiello

Members from the 1937 SMU Football Team

Secondary ResearchAccording to our secondary research, Saint Mary’s had a football team until

1955, but the president ended the program due to the high cost and poor performance of the team.

Secondary Research-Interviewed Chris Kendall and Tony Piscitello

- Co-chair members of a committee who revisited the idea of a football team at Saint Mary’s in 2005

-2005 committee: made up of 20 people including faculty, staff, alumni, and students

-At the time, reevaluate the topic as a way to raise student enrollment, especially males

-18 month long study

-MIAC strongly supported the idea

-Estimated the total cost to create the program would be between 12 and 15 million dollars - Number is based on the need for a field (at the time), maintenance, and equipment,

staffing and coaching

-The Board of Trustees stressed the need for resources in already existing sports programs at SMU - Therefore, they did not go through with the project.

Secondary Research Findings

Goals and Objectives(1) To find out which SMU sports students most attend and how frequently (2) To determine the main reasons behind students attending or not attending game

(3) To provide our clients with information relevant to the current student’s present opinions on school spirit

(4) To determine whether student’s think a football team would bring a positive addition to the campus and improve school spirit

(5) To find out if students thought SMU should invest the money into a football team

Our HypothesisWe predicted that students would feel that the

school spirit at Saint Mary’s needs to be improved and that adding a football team would be a step to help achieve that goal.

Overall, we felt that the majority of students would like SMU to at least re-explore the idea of investing in a football team.

Research StrategiesQuantitative: Created e-mail survey Used systematic random sampling Surveyed all grade levels Sent to 671 undergraduate students total Sent reminder e-mail and gave incentive of $20 Ground Round Gift Card Received emails back from 202 students Response rate of 30%

Qualitative: Conducted focus group 12 students invited 6 participated Both males and females Variety of grade levels No required criteria Further discussed in research results

Limitations/Challenges- Did not reach goal of 50% return rate on surveys

- Overlooked baseball and tennis on survey

-Some questions were not answered by respondents

- Did not leave a space at the end for surveyors to leave open-ended comments (suggestion by senior respondent)

Research ResultsQuestion 1As we predicted, men’s basketball, men’s hockey, and volleyball show highest levels of student attendance

Men's Basketball

Women's Basketball

0

40

80

120

160

YesNo

Men's Hoceky

Women's Hockey

020406080

100120140160

YesNo

Women's Volleyball80859095

100105110

YesNo

Questions 3 & 4Determine student’s reasons for attending/not attending sporting events

Of all our responses:142 females/ 56 males4 did not include their demographic information68 participate in a varsity sport

Research Results cont.

Students0

20406080

YesNo

Students0

10203040506070

YesNo

64 percent said they do not attend games because they are not interested in the sport

60 percent said they do not have enough time

Students0

102030405060708090

YesNo

79 percent said they attend games because they know the players on the team

Students0

20

40

60

80

YesNo

80 percent said they enjoy watching the sport

Students0

10203040506070

YesNo

40 percent want to show school spirit

Why do you attend games/meets?

Why do you not attend games/meets?

Students0

20

40

60

80

YesNo

Students0

20

40

60

80

YesNo

25 percent of the people they do not know when the game/meets are.

38 percent said because of the record of SMU sports

Research Results cont.Question 5:

78%

5% 17%

81%

3% 16%

All respondents Athlete Respondents only

Research Results cont.

Should Saint Mary’s invest money into a football team?

Strongly Agree Agree Indifferent Disagree Strongly Disagree

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

FreshmenSophmoresJuniorsSeniors

Question 7:The estimated the total cost to create a football program at SMU would be between $12-15 million

Research Results cont.Question 8: Home Football Games =Reason to stay on campus on weekends?

51%

38%

All respondents

6% 5%Question 9: Football Team and games=Better school spirit?

41%40%

33%32%

14%

All respondents Athlete Respondents Only

Research Results cont.All Respondents Athlete Respondents only

24% 24%

10%

38%

4%

18%

28%

34%

16%

4%

Focus Group Results: - Concluded that a football team would be a positive reason for more students to stay on campus on the weekends- Consensus was that students were in favor for SMU developing a football team as long as the tuition wasn’t significantly raised. And if tuition was raised, five out of the six were still for a football team.

Question 10: Football Team=Positive Addition?

Research ImplicationsMajority of students (78%) felt that school spirit needs

to be improved in some way.

-The ultimate recommendation would be for SMU to re-open its committees and once again explore the possibility of adding a football team, however, we see the circumstances that could prevent that.

- Our recommendation for now is to have the University explore ways to raise school spirit on campus. Some ideas would be to institute a pep band, have the dance team perform at more events, and decide on a school song.

- Connect with other colleges across the region and state, and investigate what they do as well.