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Research Strategy

Questions:

How is the stadium itself a factor for fans and attendance?
What are the reasons fans don't want to attend events?
How does a player's status affect attendance?

Based off the questions I have chosen to research, I hope to better understand why some fans do not come to events, and if the stadium is a reason. I also hope to understand if and who the popular players are, to see how they affect a game's attendance and fan participation.

For my research, I will be using primarily immersive research. I have a person who is willing to be interviewed by me about the stadium, and he is an avid FC Cincinnati fan since he grew up in Cincinnati, so he can give me valuable information about the stadium and what needs improving. I can also use this person as a way to figure out why some fans will not go to games or events being held by the club. For all of my questions, I can find answers/ people on the FC Cincinnati Reddit page. There are thousands of dedicated fans that use the page daily, and I can post on the page asking the fans about why some do not go to events, and I can also see if a popular player affects attendance or not. Another way to see if there is a fan favorite player would be to contact the club's apparel store and ask them what the most popular Jersey bought is. Although I am primarily using immersive research, I am also going to be using observational research as well. I can do this by comparing FC Cincinnati's stadium to other stadiums. I will also be comparing any star/popular players of the soccer club to LeBron James and his impact of attendance at LA Lakers game's.

Empathy Research: Miami Volley Ball V. Toledo Rockets

Sporting events around the world are one of few times when people can forget about life and enjoy themselves for a little while. Most people of all ages have been to at least one sporting event whether it be football, soccer, basketball, etc. So most people have pleasant memories of at least one day they went to one. I want you to picture a time you went to one of these events, and more specifically, who you were there with. Was it your family? Friends? Or did you even sit next to someone you never met before that point in time? Funny enough, most people can remember who they went to their first sport event with, some people even form close relationships because of it. The point is, most people forget the actual key to a popular sporting event. That being the people that attend them.

Fan Observation At The Game

On October 28th 2022 I took a more hands-on approach to my study of attendance at sporting events. I attended a Miami University volleyball game against the Toledo Rockets at the Mullet basketball stadium. I have, admittedly, not been to a college volleyball game before, and I found the experience very different to other sporting events I have been to. The atmosphere was quiet and underwhelming. There was no constant chatter like at other games, but the cheering did pick up when a point was scored. The biggest factor that stood out to me was the low attendance. Besides for the parents, the stadium was relatively empty. I was shocked, and a little annoyed, by the lack of actual Miami students who were there to watch the game. Since the parents and students were interacting very differently, I focused on one student and one parent that were sitting in front of me. The parent was showing the expected amount of excitement for a parent, and would constantly turn and brag about her daughter’s performance to the person she was sitting next to. The second attendant appeared to be a younger college student. The main difference being that he rarely looked at the game, and was usually on his phone or talking to his friend. The biggest takeaway I got from watching these two fans was that everyone enjoys the game differently than each other.

The Problem and Innovation Ideas

The main problem I saw from watching the volley ball game was that there was almost no one there to watch. Since there were no people attending the game, it made the atmosphere of the arena feel unwelcoming and boring to everyone. Because of this, we need to increase attendance at the games to draw even more people in to support our volleyball team. I did this by interviewing a Cincinnati Bengals fan, a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and finally a staff member in charge of running the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Interview 1: Aubrey Hiles

Aubrey enjoys watching hockey, and more specifically the Pittsburgh Penguins
Aubrey has been playing ice hockey for many years now, and her favorite player is Sydney Crosby
Aubrey believes that the reason Pittsburgh has so many fans is that they have "star athletes that make games more enjoyable to watch," like Sydney Crosby who is one of the greatest players to play ever
Aubrey also believes that the reason so many people attend Penguin games is because of the fact they are one of the oldest teams in the league, and were around since the league's founding back in 1917

Interview 2: Gabe Asbury

Gabe was born and raised in Cincinnati and the first ever sports event he went to was a Bengals game, which is why he is now an avid Bengal's fan
Gabe believes that the Bengals have a dedicated fan base, so every game sells tickets fairly easily
Gabe believes that most people show up to games to see Joe Burrow (who is the starting QB for the team) and he thinks that other star players are the reason for the Bengals selling more tickets as of recent years
Gabe thinks that the biggest reason even more tickets are not being sold is because of Ohio having two NFL teams. Ohio has the Bengals and the Cleveland Browns as Their NFL teams, and because of that the state is split in who they want to support
Gabe also thinks that College football is another reason that more tickets are not being sold. He says that people "Want to watch Ohio State more than they want to watch the pros"
Gabe says that people's reasoning for this is because the time to watch Ohio State is more convent for people (Saturday), and also because more people find Ohio State games more entertaining

Interview 3: Blue Jackets Employee Jason Savage

Jason Savage works in the announcers box during the Columbus Blue Jacket's games
When interviewed, Mr Savage told me of the lack luster attendee at games recently
He said the main cause for this is the condition of the team this year. The Jackets do not have any people that people find enjoyable to watch. They have no real star players this year and that dilemma not only leads to poor attendance, but a poor win/loss record, which helps keep attendance down as well

Insights For the Client Challenge

After going over my research, I believe I have found some helpful insights we can use for the upcoming client challenge with FC Cincinnati.

After reviewing my information about the Miami Student at the volleyball game, I realized the importance of keeping a lively and exciting atmosphere during the games to keep peoples attention on the players and what is happening.
After discussing with Gabe, I discovered that having two major teams per state will lower the attendance of each team because the state will stay split on which team it wishes to route for.
Conversations with both Jason Savage and Aubrey made me realize the impact that a star player can have on the turnout of games because they make the games more enjoyable for people to watch.
After interviewing Jason Savage, I realized the impact of a low win rate can cause for the turnout of games because no one wishes to spend money just to see their favorite team lose.
After discussing with Gabe, I also learned that professional teams are not just competing with other pro teams for attendance, but with college teams as well.

Reflection

I think that actively going to a sporting event to research was much more interesting than just googling articles to pull information from. I feel that doing research this way gave me a much better understanding of audience participation at sporting events, as well as what drives people to go to them in the first place. The making of the empathy maps really made me think and analyze how people would be thinking and how they would describe the positions they were in as fans. I also really enjoyed the interview aspect of this project. Although finding someone I could use as my professional interview was difficult, Mr Savage proved to be valuable in finding reasons behind lack of attendance at sporting events. Interviewing others also gave me an interesting prospective on how avid fans of these sports clubs/teams act, and why they became fans in the first place. Overall, empathy research has proven to be a valuable way to find information, and has allowed me to get a prospective that normal research would not have given me.

Persona 1:Olivia Wilson

Persona Mid-Week Assignment

Insight Statements:

I want to go to an FC Cincinnati to experience my first ever Major League Soccer game, but I can not go because the lack of advertising makes it hard to find out when,who, and where they are playing.
I want to go to an FC Cincinnati game to experience the competitive atmosphere, but I will not because the games can not compare to the competitiveness of the major European leagues.
I want to go to an FC Cincinnati game to experience the heated and energetic atmosphere in the stands, but I cannot because none of my friends believe soccer can be enjoyable to watch.
I would like to go to an FC Cincinnati game to see how they utilize social media, but I can not because I do not know how soccer clubs use social media to advertise and excite potential fans
I want to go to an FC Cincinnati game to experience how the club utilizes all the money that it makes from games, but I can not do this because they do not communicate with the public on what they are focusing their resources on.

Persona 2: Kian Graham

Persona 3: Korina Vililanueva

Factors

Winning record and a secure playoff spot
Good and enjoyable weather
Clean and sanitary stadium experience
Electric and competitive games
Star players that people can enjoy and get invested in
Post game interviews with the coach and players to see what needs improvement
Jumbo tron or Big Screens so people sitting anywhere have the ability to watch the game in an enjoyable setting
Family Weekend and themed games
Increased social media presence, especially on Facebook and Instagram
Fan engagement activities
Games with discounted tickets
A once a year/ few years non-regular season based tournament like the FIFA World Cup

Persona 4: Keith Shannons

Weekend 11 Ideating and Converging Assignment

When looking at a sports team's attendance, it makes sense that most teams average a higher attendance during their rivalry games. The atmosphere is filled with a constant fiery mood, and everyone, even casual fans, are sitting on the edge of their seats cheering for their team to dominate the competition. Although it is hard to match the energy of a rivalry game, it makes sense to continue the trend of themed games. FC Cincinnati could get the attention of so many more people if they gave their games a specific theme for the audience and stadium to follow. From a Halloween night where everyone dresses up, to family weekend where families get in for a discount, there are so many ways to differentiate from other fut ball clubs using theme nights!

Audience

With my theme night idea, I believe that my target audience can be quite broad because some nights cater to families, and others cater towards young adults. I believe my target audience for family nights is for kids and parents(10-15 and 30-50). For the other themed nights catered towards young adults, the targeted audience should be 18 years old to 30 years old. The reason I have two targeted audiences is that parents and young adults are attracted to different types of themes, so having multiple target audiences makes logical sense.

Audience Motivations

There are multiple reasons that the targeted audience would want to participate in the theme nights. First and foremost is that they can save money. An example would be on family weekend if the family ticket package was sold at a discount: Or a theme could be free food every goal or something of the sorts. Another reason is to connect with the community. People who are participating in an event together are normally more comfortable around that person. That being said, people participating in the theme will have an automatic talking point with each other, so meeting people becomes easier.

Factors

Fan - Engaging with the team and the match while also enjoying the surrounding environment. These moments help create a connection with the team and the fans as well.

Experimental - With themed games there is a different experience, so you are trying something new when stepping into the stadium. Steps away from the same old formula of basic games, and adds a new level of excitement.

Research

According to Deloitte, the casual fan is not nearly as satisfied with FC Cincinnati's games and stadium as the team fanatics. They found that Casual fans are satisfied less by the uniqueness of the stadium by nearly 20 %, with fanatics giving a 70% satisfaction rate compared to the casual fan's 57% satisfaction rate. Fans want a unique experience when they come to a sporting event, not the same thing every time.

According to the 2021 season attendance report, the Cincinnati Bengals received almost a 71,000 people turnout to a rival game against the Baltimore Ravens. This is 10,000 more people than the average turnout per game, and it is because people care more about rivalry night.

As seen with rivalry night, more people attend big, and themed games. Instead of making only one or two themed rivalry games, make multiple themed games like a family weekend game, a game that donates earnings to a charity, etc. Themed games are not common in sports, let alone soccer, so using that to FC Cincinnati's advantage could net the club an increase in attendance in both the short run and long run. It also helps form the club's identity, which will help it become more recognizable with everyday people.

Impact

If FC Cincinnati decides to follow through with themed games, then attention for the club will increase. People will be intrigued and want to experience first hand what the games are like, since no other club does things like this. Family demographics and young adult demographics will flock to the idea because it offers something for everyone. This will increase attendance for FC Cincinnati in both the short and the long run, as well as forming a community and culture around the games. In the long run, this idea will also help forge the club's identity as well as increase player performance because an increase in fans motivate players to work and play harder.

Reflection and Works Cited

When brainstorming for a solution to the problem, I was surprised by how many solutions I could think of. The difficulty of this was narrowing down the ideas and picking which one I thought would benefit the club the most. I went in to this project with the idea that I would probably make would be a social media update for FC Cincinnati, but that seemed a little basic and out of my abilities. After brainstorming with my team, I found my idea for themed games. The hardest part about this project was definitely the research. Finding sources to support themed games was proven to be difficult, and it took me a few hours to find solid and relevant information. I think the part of my research that shocked me most was the importance rival games have on attendance. I always knew that more people go to the rival games, however I never realized just how many more people go. Something else I discovered while researching for this project was learning just how much different casual fans and fanatics are different. The main difference being how unsatisfied casual fans are compared to fanatics. This project in general proved to be somewhat difficult for me and my group, primarily because we could not find too many good sources that were acceptable to use. I feel that my ideation process is improving, and I am excited to see how else it may serve me in the client challenge.

Sources:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/attendance.htm

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-stadium-experience-keeping-sports-fans-engaged-loyal.pdf
https://reports.mintel.com/trends/#/observation/772235?fromSearch=%3Ffreetext%3DFC%2520CIncinnati%26resultPosition%3D

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