U.S. college students have yet to adopt social media outlets as a primary source for sports news according to an exploratory study conducted by Game Day Communications in partnership with the University of Cincinnati.

The study comprises responses from nearly 300 students representing college students from freshmen to graduate studies. Respondents included students from nearly 30 U.S. colleges and universities.

The study analyzed the sports media consumption habits among U.S. college students and reveals that sports websites, television, and print publications are the primary source for sports information, not the ever-growing domain of social media (refer to Table 1).

Table 1: Percentage of students and their sources of getting sports news

Results revealed that the most visited sports websites include ESPN.com (76%), NFL.com (42%), YahooSports.com (25%).  The television venue encapsulates the majority of time spent enjoying sports news with 45% of respondents watching 1-3 hours of sports news per day.  However, 46% of college students who enjoy print publications only read for less than one hour per day.

The study also revealed that 62% of respondents have a smart phone with internet connectivity so access is not an issue with media consumption opportunities.

“Sport marketers need to understand how to leverage social media with the traditional outlets to reach college students, a desirable audience for many marketers,” said Jackie Reau, CEO of Game Day Communications and an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati. “With social media, the goal is to create a seamless integration between traditional and new media efforts. These findings provide support for sport marketers to not depend on social media, but use that outlet as a way to create supplemental interaction.”