Driving Female Student Attendance at Sizable State University

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Liz Sattler Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

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Claire Trattner Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

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Rebecca Achen University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA

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The Athletic Department at Sizeable State University has struggled both on and off the field in recent years. With a majority of their teams finishing in the bottom half of the conference 3 years in a row, student attendance at home athletic events is at an all-time low. Despite these challenges, the women’s basketball team has found success in recent years even finishing first in the conference last season and making a trip to the NCAA tournament. With an incoming student class made up of majority females, and a growing mound of research on female sports fandom, the athletic director has challenged the marketing team to specifically target female college students with their marketing initiatives in the upcoming season. Driven by a largely female leadership team at Sizable State University, Grace Perkins, the associate athletic director for marketing, has been tasked with developing these new marketing strategies which will drive female student attendance at home athletic events, with particular focus on home women’s basketball games.

Sattler (easattl@ilstu.edu) is corresponding author, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-6750

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