An analysis of university TV spots aired during National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision football games

Abstract

Public universities who participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision produce and air university TV spots during televised college football games. The purpose of this research was to analyze TV spots of public universities who participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and determine if university TV spots were successful based on the official theme from the university and how the viewing audience perceived the university TV spot. This research used a qualitative paradigm that involved two phases: Phase I was a content analysis followed by Phase II, which was one-on-one interviews. ESPN’s College GameDay was used to collect a group of university TV spots. A purposeful sample was then used to select nine university TV spots that would be used in the research. The university TV spots were captured during the televised college football games. Nine participants were purposefully selected to participate in one-on-one interviews. Finally, each university represented in the sample was contacted to receive the official theme assigned by the university official. In this research, the researcher found that some university TV spots successfully communicated their official theme assigned by their university officials and some did not communicate their university TV spot successfully. This research has analyzed the success of university TV spots by determining the compatibility of the university official theme with the viewers’ perceived themes. With such a large viewing audience for approximately 30 seconds of airtime and university funding associated with producing or outsourcing university TV spots, the results of this research warrants the significance of understanding university TV spots as well as continued research on university TV spots.