Googling for Sports:
How NCAA Programs Advertise Online Through Paid Search
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17161/jas.v8i1.15769Abstract
A wealth of research has analyzed how NCAA programs market and advertise for their athletic offerings. Although research into the marketing of NCAA football programs have dominated the literature, this study examined an under-researched element of NCAA marketing and advertising: advertising through paid online search techniques, especially as COVID-19 has moved many marketing efforts online. As a result, this study reports on Google Adwords strategies of a stratified random sample of 250 NCAA Division I, II, and III programs. Results suggest few NCAA programs engage with Google Adwords strategies (9.2%; 23 of 250 programs), while those that do are often Division I programs from Power 5 Conferences. Additionally, one institution spent over $18,000 per month on Google Adwords advertising, while another institution in the same athletics conference spent just under $500. Implications for NCAA program advertisement and online marketing—including in a COVID-19 environment—will be addressed.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Joshua Childs, Guillermo Ortega, Jase Kugiya, Zachary Taylor
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND) License
1. License. You retain the copyright for your work. You here by grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable license to:
• Reproduce, distribute and display the edited manuscript in the Journal of Amateur Sport (and other publications prepared by us or on our behalf) in any media now or hereafter known (including without limitation electronic publications such as the Internet, Google Scholar, and social media)
We do not restrict your distribution or use of the manuscript following publication in the Journal of Amateur Sport (in fact, we encourage it!). However, we have the right to publish the manuscript first on the journal website. Thus, the foregoing licenses are exclusive to us prior to our publication of the manuscript. You confirm that you have disclosed to us all previous or pending public disseminations of the manuscript, including without limitation any publications or acceptances by other journals or disseminations via websites or conference proceedings.
2. Other Confirmations. You confirm that you are the manuscripts sole author(s); you have the right to convey the foregoing licenses; the manuscript does not infringe any third party copyright, publicity/privacy right or other proprietary right; and the manuscript is not defamatory or otherwise unlawful. You shall defend and indemnify us against all claims based on any alleged breach of your confirmations in this contract.
Compensation: You will receive one (1) free copy (PDF) of the article published online in the Journal of Amateur Sport. You will receive no royalty or other monetary return from the Journal of Amateur Sport for use of the article. You do, however, have our extreme gratitude!
3. Entire Contract. This contract is the sole and exclusive agreement between the parties regarding the manuscript and supersedes all prior conversations and understandings regarding its subject matter. This contract may be modified or supplemented only by a mutually signed writing.
