Promotional Strategies After the Reorganization: The Case of the AFL

Friday, April 26, 2013
Exhibit Hall Poster Area 1 (Convention Center)
Eddie T. C. Lam, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, Siu-Yin Cheung, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Demetrius W. Pearson, University of Houston, Houston, TX and Sungwon Bae, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ

Background/Purpose According to Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton (2007), promotion is one of the major elements in the marketing mix and it is designed to stimulate consumers' interest in the product or event. The purpose of this study was to identify those promotional activities that were most appealing to the spectators and motivated them to attend arena football games after the reorganization of the Arena Football League.

Method The Spectator Motivation Inventory (Lam, 2008) was administrated to spectators (N=595) of an arena football team in the Midwestern region in 2010. Random stratified and cluster sampling techniques were used so that different sections of the arena would be covered. Spectators were asked to rate the importance of the promotional activities that would increase their home game attendance on a 7-point Likert scale (1=Not Important, and 7=Very Important).

Analysis/Results Based on the overall mean scores of the 12 promotional activities, spectators rated “Giveaways” and “TV Advertising” as well as “Good Public Relations” as the most important factors that would influence their decisions in attending home games; whereas “E-mail Offer” and “Direct Mail” had the lowest rankings. These high ranking factors also showed a significant (p < .05) positive relationship with future home game attendance.

Conclusions Consistent with previous research, this results showed that such promotional activities as giveaways, advertising, publicity, and sales promotion had strong impacts on spectators' decision in attending home arena football games. This study provided valuable strategies for marketers in promoting future home game attendance.