Abstract: The Study examined the effect of motivational factors on sports performance among Nigerian Universities athletes at the 2006 West African Universities Games (WAUG) The games hosted by the University of Lagos, Nigeria took care of tennis, Athletics and Table Tennis (TATT) events only. Two hundred athletes randomly selected from the twenty of Nigerian Universities that took part in the games served as subjects of the study. A structured questionnaire validated by experts in the filed of physical and health education was used to collect information from subjects of the study. Descriptive statistics such as percentages and tables were used to analyse the data collected from the subjects of the study. The study revealed that Nigerian universities athletes put up comparative superlative performance to excel on the medals table over and above other countries that took part in the games. However, the quality of their performance cannot be compared with the high quality performance usually witnessed at internal championships such as the world Universities Games (FISU) by there counterparts from developed nations like Canada, United Kingdom and United States of America. The study also revealed that there is nothing like University sports scholarship put in place by any of the Universities, students-athletes who missed out on tests and examinations are totally at their mercies of the lecturers concerned and many (85%) of the Universities cannot boast of modern facilities and equipment. Most of the subjects of the study (92.5%) pointed out that inadequate funding of Universities and lack of interest in study sports sponsorship by multinationals among others are manor issues confronting quality performance by Nigerian Universities athletes. The study recommended that conscious efforts should now be made by various Universities to give sports and games programme the proper recognition it rightly deserve. This could be done by attracting and awarding study scholarship to budding athletes, making special provision of the academic needs of students-athletes, they should also collaborate with other organizations and agencies including multinationals to generate funds for the development of facilities and other infrastructures for the advancement of sports programmes in the Universities.