Research Methods: Advocating for Enhancing Funds

As a longtime member - and now assistant coach - of the men's bowling program at the University of Wisconsin -Whitewater, I experienced firsthand the economic struggles of a club sports team with minimal funding trying to (with success) compete with programs that have far more money and can even afford to award scholarships to their players. This is why as part of the capstone assignment for COMM 785: Applied Communication Research course, I chose to dedicate time to researching the landscape of college bowling from the perspective of how teams make and spend their money.

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One goal of this presentation were to display my research capabilities, as finding the information on this topic, along with related studies, was extremely difficult, because there just isn't much research specifically on this topic. Another goal of this presentation was to introduce men's college bowling as a legitimate sport to those who might not view it in that light. People take this sport very seriously, and it is something one can go pro in, so funding the sport for more men to have that opportunity is something I wanted to at least introduce to people.

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The primary essential learning objectives this project demonstrates are professional practice and communication skills, as sports communication is a field I have desired, and will continue to pursue, and financial analysis definitely falls into that echelon; communication skills are also utilized throughout the duration of the presentation.