“Are the Punishments Consistent?”: A Quantitative Analysis of NCAA Enforcement

Prior research on organizational misconduct within intercollegiate athletics focuses on the penalties administered by the NCAA and types of violations committed by member institutions, rather than the engagement of misconduct and the role of the NCAA as a social-control agent. Consequently, the purpose of this manuscript is to analyze the relationship between social control agents (i.e., the NCAA) and potential wrongdoers (i.e., member institutions), in addition to how the relationship affects the evolving line separating right from wrong. This quantitative study consists of a two-stage probit regression model which found evidence that the type of violations committed in major violation cases are significant in determining the likelihood of sanctions. This study will contribute to intercollegiate athletic administration by providing an opportunity to better comprehend NCAA enforcement procedures, along with utilizing the findings to discover how the NCAA functions as a social-control agent.

A Study Regarding the Thermal Environment and Thermal Comfort during the 2021 National Intercollegiate Athletic Games and Related Activities in Taiwan

Due to the impact of global warming and extreme weather events, outdoor human thermal comfort conditions become tougher and harder to mitigate, especially for pedestrian movement and exercises. In order to better understand the thermal environment and thermal comfort, especially for outdoor sports, the 2021 National Intercollegiate Athletic Games held in Tainan, southern Taiwan, in May was selected as the research target. Both on-site, real-time environmental monitoring data and the Taiwan Climate Change Projection Information and Adaptation Knowledge Platform (TCCIP)’s Taiwan ReAnalysis Downscaling data (TReAD) were applied to estimate the modified physiologically equivalent temperature (mPET), the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), and the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) for members participating in the relevant activities. The focus of this study was to analyze the thermal performance of (1) the torch relay around Taiwan from 20 April to 8 May and (2) the scheduled planning games held at the track and field stadium, at the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan, from May 15 to May 18, 2021.

Declining Student Attendance at College Sporting Events: Testing the Relative Influence of Constraints

College students represent an important target market for intercollegiate athletic marketers; however, re-cent years have seen a nationwide trend of declining student attendance at high-profile sporting events (Cohen, 2014; Rowland, 2019). The current study examined this issue by studying the influence of constraints on student attendance. Data were collected in partnership with the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA). In total, more than 23,000 respondents from 60 NCAA Di-vision I institutions participated in the study. Conjoint analysis was utilized to assess student attendance preferences across a set of attributes to determine the relative importance of each constraint tested. Separate analyses were conducted for both football and men’s basketball samples as well as NCAA conference tier (Power Five, Group of Five, FCS). Results indicated constraint importance varied by market segment. Of note, as passion levels among student respondents increased, importance shifted from ticket price to seat location and game day atmosphere.

Up, Down, and All-Around: The Swirling-Transfer Collegiate Athlete Experience

Intercollegiate athletics have become an integral part of campus life (Denhart, Villwock, & Vedder, 2010; Mixon & Trevino, 2005; Shulman & Bowen, 2001), and have grown exponentially in the resources universities put forth to participate in this extracurricular activity (Clotfelter, 2011). One of the biggest evolutions of intercollegiate athletics has been the collegiate athlete transfer phenomenon (Cooper & Hawkins, 2014); however, little research has been conducted on transfer collegiate athletes, or the transfer collegiate athlete experience. As such, the purpose of this instrumental case study was to discover and describe the experiences and perceptions of swirling-transfer collegiate athletes at Athletic State University. A purposive sample included nine collegiate athletes (six football and three baseball) interviewed and observed to gain a holistic experience of the swirling-transfer phenomenon, with multiple supporting documents also collected and analyzed. Participants of this study describe this unique experience as “the roller coaster experience”. Each collegiate athlete perceives their participation in athletics and higher education as a means for social mobility and intends to pursue professional league opportunities. Recommendations to intercollegiate athletic governing associations, institutions, and scholars are included, with an emphasis of creating a database to track this subpopulation of transfer collegiate athletes, as well as educating practitioners who support these collegiate athletes every day.