1. Survey Report: Findings on Attitudes on Athletes
as Employees
19 April 2016
Contact: Alexandria Martinez
alexandria_martinez@emerson.edu
973-262-5985
150 Boylston Street Boston, Mass 02116

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Memorandum……………………...……………………………………………………………….……3
Methodology…………..…………………………………………………………………………………3
Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………...…………....…..4
Key Findings…………………………………………………………………………………………...6
Gender and the Role of Sports ……..…………………………………………………………..…......6
Age and the Role of Sports…………………………………………………………………..………...8
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………...9
References………………………………………………………………………………………….…..10

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Martinez Polling Company
To: Spencer Kimball
From: Alexandria Martinez
Date: April 19, 2016
Re: Summary Findings for a Survey of Attitudes of Athletes as Employees
Martinez Polling Company is pleased to present Spencer Kimball with the findings of a survey
conducted of attitudes of athletes as employees. All respondents interviewed in this study were
part of a fully representative random sample of n=42 of people over 18 from the United States.
The margin of error for the sample +/­ 14.93 with a confidence level of 95%. This survey was
conducted through April 3rd to April 7th of 2016.
Methodology
About this poll: The data collected for this survey was gathered online by Survey Monkey, in
collaboration with Amazon Turk workers. Respondents opted in to the survey. . Respondents had
to be a United States Citizens and have had a job before. All respondents were asked the same
questions. The pollster’s questionnaire and report included time of survey, age, gender and
educational attainment. This gave us the ability to determine the diversity of the sample.
Frequencies and crosstabs were analyzed for every question after running both univariate and
bivariate analyses. This type of analysis examines differences between subgroups of the overall
population.
Introduction
This survey was wanting to understand on how the public views athletes in the work force. Many
of the people who work at Martinez Polling Company were former athletes and we wanted to
find out how United States citizens viewed athletes as employees. After reading a couple of
articles, we wanted more evidence to prove that athletes do make good employees. In a Forbes
article, they quoted Vincent McCaffrey who is a recruiter and career services firm in North
Carolina. He said, “​Most 22­year­olds have no track record from an employment standpoint, but
the experience a student athlete has developed bodes well in the workplace.” Out of the articles
that were researched three main attributes kept coming up in regards to athletes and they were
team players, good time managers and competitors. This is where we started to figure out what

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we wanted to ask the random sample of respondents. Overall, the results that we found were
almost aligned to what we thought when we started this survey. Age played a major role in the
findings, but gender did not. We did run into a few problems and it was because we did not
receive as many respondents as we wanted and we could not determine the race or region
because those questions were not asked. We are excited to share the rest of our findings!
Executive Summary
➔ Since n=42, the relevance of the most of the crosstabs using the chi­square test was not
there. Age had the most relevance in regards to the questions that we asked like “If you
played sports, did you put it on your resume”
➔ 18­29 were the highest age group with putting that they played sports on their resumes
with 50%.
◆ This cross tab of How old are you/If you have played sports was relevant because
it passed the Chi­ Square test
◆ Every other age group had less than 20% of respondents that put that they played
sports on their resume

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➔ 50% of 50­64 year old did not put that they played sports on their resumes, even when
they did in fact play sports. 30 ­ 49 year olds followed closely behind with 47% of not
putting that they played sports on their resume.
◆ Usually these age groups have established jobs where they might not have
updated their resumes so adding that bit of information might seem irrelevant to
them
➔ 47% of 30­49 year olds did not play sports but 100% of the 65 and over age group did not
play sports either.
➔ All the ages groups combined 43% of people did not put that they played sports on their
resumes when they did play sports in some capacity. 33 % of people did not play sports
and 24% did play sports and did put in on their resumes.
➔ Age played another role in the aspect of sports.
◆ In the crosstab “How old are you/Did you play sports in high school/college?” it
was relevant because it passed the Chi Square Test.
➔ 50% of 50­64 year old years played sports in high school while 0 % played in college
◆ 50% of this age group did not even play sports.

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➔ 44% of 18­29 year olds played sports in both high school and college while 44% only
played in high school and 13% did not play sports.
◆ There is a push for younger generations to play sports in college, but this means
that it is a more competitive atmosphere
➔ 42% of 30­49 year olds played sports in high school while 5% played both in high school
and college and 53% did not play sports at all.
➔ 50% of 50­64 year olds played sports in high school, while 50 % did not play sports at
all.
◆ It has to question what do people label as “Sports”, is it playing pickup basketball
with neighbors or actually being on the team for your school.
➔ 100% of the 65+ age group did not play sports at all.
➔ With all the age group combined 43% of the respondents played sports in high school,
19% played both sports in high school and college and 38% did not play sports at all.
Key Findings
Gender and the Role of Sports
➔ Asking what the respondents gender and if they played sports in high school or college
gave interesting responses , 50% of females played in high school while 40% of males
played in high school , 11 % of females played sports in both high school and college
while 22% of males played both. 39% of females did not play sports at all and 40% of
males did not play sports either.
◆ There were more male responses than females so the fact that males doubled
might not be the case if there was equal male and female respondents.
◆ Again playing sports is a different for people in different regions because the
competition level is different.
◆ Also playing sports could mean being on a recreational team at your university,
not necessarily a varsity team.
◆ Also, females study different things at college than males do, so maybe they could
not play sports at a college because they did not offer that sport.

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➔ Females who played sports in high school or college, 22% of them also put it on their
resume while 44% of females did not put in on their resume if they played sports.
◆ This could mean that they did not think it was important or did not play sports
long enough to show being able to stick with something for a longer period of
time.
➔ Males who played sports in high school only 22% of them put it on their resume while
44% did not put in their resume
◆ There was a high number of both males and females who played sports not put
that they played sports on their resume.
➔ 56% of females thought that playing sports has increased their chances of being hired,
while 6% thought that it decreased
◆ This shows that playing sports does help you in the workforce. It is interesting
that a percentage thought it decreased her chances, this just shows that you need
more information to fully understand why someone answered the way they did.

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➔ 52% of males thought that playing sports increased their chances of being hired, but 4%
thought that it decreased their chances
◆ There are similar statistics between the male and female viewed on getting hired.
➔ 39% of females did not play sports and 44% of males also did not play sports.
◆ There was a relatively high number of respondents that did not play sports. This is
where it would have been better to understand more about the respondents.
Age and the Role of Sports
➔ In the 18­29 age group, 81% of the respondents believed that playing sports increased
their chances of getting hired, while 6% believed that it decreased their chances
◆ 13% of this age group did not play sports
➔ In the 30­49 age group, 37% of respondents believed that playing sports increased their
chances of getting hired, while 5% thought that it decreased their chances
◆ 58% of this age group did not play sports
➔ In the 50­64 age group, 50% of the respondents believed that playing sports increased
their chances of getting hired, while none thought that it decreased their chances
◆ 50% of this age group did not play sports

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➔ In the 65+, there was only one respondent so they did not play sports
➔ Many of the respondents did not have a company affiliated sports team
◆ 88% of 18­29 year olds, 90% of 30­49, 83% of 50­64, and 100% of 65+
➔ There was small amount that had company affiliated sports teams
◆ 13% of 18­29, 11% of 30­49, 17 of 50­64, and 0% of 65+
➔ A majority of the respondents know 1­5 people who played sports in high school or
college with 43% while 5% of people know 11­15 people who played sports in high
school or college
➔ All respondents above the age of 30 believed that being a team player makes good
employee while 14 % of respondents under the age of 29 did not believe that being a
team player makes you a good employee.
◆ This could mean that the definition of a good employee is evolving and has
different meanings to different age groups.
➔ All respondents above the age of 30 believed that being a multi tasker makes a good
employee while 14% of people under the age of 29 did not believe that being a multi
tasker makes a good employee

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◆ The younger generation has a different view on what makes a good employee.
Are they not playing sports and not seeing the connection between the two?
Conclusion
Age played a big role in the responses. People who were above 30 years old thought that
three qualities of being a multi­tasker, competitive and a team player made you a better
employee. This is interesting and it shows how the quality of the working experience has
changed. Maybe qualities that are attractive as an employee to the younger generations are not
attractive to the older generations. Has our work ethic also evolved over course of the years?
These are all questions that play a role in how people are answering the questions. Some males
did not think that being competitive was a positive aspect of being an employee while all females
believed that being competitive was part of being a good employee.
There were a couple of things that could have been changed to make the survey better.
One is that asking more demographic questions because only asking age, gender and
employment status did not give a proper analysis of the types of people taking the survey and
possibly why they answered the way they answered. The questions also did not bring me us to
the exact conclusion that we were looking for. It would have been better to ask different
questions to come to the same conclusion. Also, it would have been more helpful to get more
responses. In the end, we are happy with the results that Martinez Polling Company received and
hope to further some researchers plans with these results. Being involved in sports at any
capacity is a great way to learn valuable tools for the future and here at Martinez Polling
Company we want to promote that positive learning!
References
Survey Parameters were gathered from the American Community Survey 2011/2013 and
2010/2014.
Age:​http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_
3YR_S0201&prodType=table

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Gender:​http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_1
3_3YR_S0201&prodType=table
Educational attainment:
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_3YR_
S0201&prodType=table
Income:​http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_1
4_5YR_S1901&prodType=table
Ethnicity:​http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS
_14_5YR_DP05&prodType=table
http://www.fastcompany.com/3028829/why­your­next­employee­should­be­a­former­student­ath
lete
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2013/10/02/why­you­should­fill­your­company­wit
h­athletes/#112ade5c1f99