Wesmen Athletics research
Why 64.5% of students had never been to a Wesmen game
- Focus groups
- Survey
- Analysis + recommendations
A Marketing Research class project at the University of Winnipeg, with Wesmen Athletics as the client for the whole class. Each group ran its own study, and I led ours, a team of five.
Wesmen Athletics has more than 20 national championships. Most students at the university have never been to a game. Wesmen asked our class to find out why, and what would change it.
Four of the report's slides.
01 The questions
Three things to find out: how students want to hear about games, what would get them there and keep them coming back, and which sponsors fit the Courtside Club.
The way we saw it, Wesmen wasn't really competing with the Bisons. It was competing with everything else a student could do on a weeknight in Winnipeg.
02 How we found out
Secondary research on fan engagement trends and on the competition: the UM Bisons, the Winnipeg SeaBears and the Manitoba Moose.
Two 40-minute focus groups: six domestic students on Zoom and five international students in person, with a discussion guide built around awareness, barriers, game day and sponsors.
A 31-person survey in Qualtrics to test what the focus groups said, analysed with cross-tabs so we could compare attendees with non-attendees and domestic with international students.
My part: I led the project and did most of the work myself: I wrote the survey and the focus group questions, ran the focus groups and built the final report deck, with the team contributing along the way.
03 What we found
Awareness depends on whether you already follow the team. Followers felt communication was fine. Everyone else heard almost nothing unless it showed up on the main UWinnipeg channels or came from a friend. The UW weekly email was the top channel, at 68% of respondents and 87.5% of international students, and more people saw the main UW Instagram than the Wesmen one.
Schedule conflicts were the biggest barrier, then awareness. Domestic students raised safety around the downtown location and a flat atmosphere more often. International students mostly said they never heard about games.
Tangible value beats information. Free food got the most votes as a reason to go (22), then free merch and a loyalty program (16 each). For atmosphere: halftime shows (25) and theme nights (19).
04 What we recommended
Use the main UW channels: a Wesmen block in every weekly email, cross-posting to the main UWinnipeg account, and posters and screens around campus.
Make every game an event: free pizza or merch for the first 50 students, theme nights, real halftime entertainment and a loyalty program (four games earns a bookstore gift card).
Take on safety head-on: promote the SafeWalk program and put visible security outside at game time.
Two sponsors for the Courtside Club: 41.9% wanted a non-alcoholic option and local craft beer led the rest (29%), so one local non-alcoholic partner and one local brewery.
05 What I'd lead with now
Looking back, the most useful thing in our data wasn't in our headline. People who had been to a game saw it very differently from people who hadn't.
Felt the area was unsafe
Rated the atmosphere positive
The focus groups called games "dead" and "high-school-like", but most of the people who had actually gone liked it. That points to a different problem: the game is better than its reputation, so the job is getting people to their first one.
I'd keep the incentives but aim them at first-timers (free pizza for your first game, bring a friend free) and let people who have been do the convincing: student-filmed clips from the stands, and players telling their classes about the next game, an idea that came straight from the focus groups.
31 responses, with only 11 attendees, is a direction worth testing, not proof.