University Of Illinois At Springfield: Student Attendance At Sporting Events

Student Attendance at Sporting Events

The University of Illinois at Springfield provides students with a top-notch education and is one of three schools under the University of Illinois school system. While education is the main purpose of attending college, gaining a sense of school pride, bonding and making everlasting memories is also a very important part. Attendance and comradery at sporting events is a problem at UIS that has been brought up by students, faculty, and community members. Sporting event attendance has been documented as a problem by photos, comparisons to other schools and through fan testimonies of their experiences at games. When students and the community do not support their school's athletes at games, sport teams, enrollment, student comradery, and the

Springfield is in what is considered a colder location compared to some schools with high sport attendance. Colder cities are associated with significantly lower attendance levels in all sports. Becker (2014) discovered that a one-degree drop in the average temperature in January decreases the average home attendance by nearly 0.5%, indicating that people who live in warmer areas are more likely to attend sporting events. Surprisingly, indoor sports such as basketball are still affected by weather (p. 12) especially when the location of the game/event is not close to other indoor activities. While the weather in Springfield is considered colder, the geographic location of the University of Illinois at Springfield is on the outskirts of Springfield and not within walking distance. When games are further away not within walking distance to the city or other big attractions, game attendance will be lower (Becker, 2017; Winfree, 2004). Since UIS broadcast their games, they potentially are losing out students coming out and supporting because they feel, the game is