Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 4-30-2021

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Business Administration

First Advisor

Bonnie Van Ness

Second Advisor

Kathleen Fuller

Third Advisor

Robert Van Ness

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to look at Ole Miss athletic events, specifically football games, and the success and profit of local businesses in Oxford, Mississippi and the University of Mississippi. There are several existing studies analyzed in this paper that indicate a correlation between college football programs and the University and city revenues at several other colleges and universities across the country. A historical analysis of the University of Mississippi Athletic Department’s revenues and expenses, football attendance numbers, and University enrollment trends throughout the years 2015 to 2019 indicates how important football is to the University and its financial impact. Analyzing Oxford, Mississippi’s city sales tax data collected from the Mississippi Department of Revenue across those same years also indicates that there appear to be correlations between consumer spending and the Ole Miss football game schedule. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 substantially changed the athletic department’s operations and affected local businesses’ profits significantly, which is analyzed through the athletic department’s financial statements and the city sales tax data from the year 2020. In an effort to understand just how much local businesses in Oxford benefit from the effects of Ole Miss football games, personal interviews were conducted with various business owners in the city. The information obtained in these interviews reveals how much Oxford businesses rely on the traffic that Ole Miss football games bring each year. The result of this research indicates that Ole Miss football influences the financial success and profitability of many local businesses in Oxford due to increased tourist traffic and spending on game day weekends, and many businesses, as a result, rely on football season for profits year after year.

Accessibility Status

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Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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