Impact of Financial Incentives on the Performance of Field Hockey Teams (Men): A Case Study of Higher Education Institutions (HEIS) Of Pakistan

Abstract

Consistent decline in performance of Pakistan Field Hockey team (men) in excellent international competitions has raised a serious concern among professionals. it has become an area of great interest to discover underlying causes of this phenomenon. Economic model of sports suggests that one way of understanding underlying cause of various variables associated with sports performance is assessing the role of finance. This study sought to understand the impact of financial incentives on performance of field hockey varsity players (men) in Pakistan. For this purpose, a self-developed questionnaire that was consisted on 21 items, was distributed among all (eleven) teams (men) of field hockey that were qualified for participation in intervarsity hockey championship (men) Pakistan. For analysis, a simple regression was run to explore the relationship among financial incentives for varsity student field hockey athletes (males) hockey infrastructure, coaching facilities and their sports performance. The analysis indicated that all of three dependent variables (facilities, coaching and performance) found to positively related with financial incentives. Findings suggested that institutions of higher education should offer additional financial benefits for varsity hockey athletes with the aim of achieving objective of uplifting the performance of field hockey (men) at university level in Pakistan. The findings further highlight that the universities should allocate enough finance to develop and to promote sports infrastructure and coaching facilities of high quality to raise the standard of field hockey at universities in Pakistan. The findings of this study put forward the importance of reviewing policy matters regarding budgetary allocations and their usage for national game of Pakistan in institutions of higher education.