Demands for enhanced accountability and effectiveness in higher education have also affected athletic departments, requiring a more cost-efficient managerial approach to the administration of athletic facilities, especially arenas.
The purpose of this study was to examine athletic directors’ perceptions towards the arena management models they currently utilize. To achieve such purpose, 346 athletic directors working at institutions supporting men’s basketball were invited to participate in an online survey. A combination of descriptive statistics, Kruskall-Wallis, factor analysis, and discriminant analysis were used to analyze the data.
The results showed that the majority of the respondents have either the athletic department or other university departments operating their arenas, but emergent arena management models have a small but noticeable presence. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the following aspects should be taken into consideration when making the decision of adopting a certain arena management model: the overall satisfaction with the current model, the desired amount of control over the venue’s operation, the availability of in-house staff’s expertise, the department’s need to reduce costs and maximize revenue, the venue’s size and ability to host outside events, the venue’s revenue generation potential, the university policies regarding arena management (venue control and space sharing), the model’s ability to allow the department to transfer financial and legal risks, and enrollment.