Electronic Football Participation vs. Traditional Football Engagements in Korea

Electronic sport games have gained momentum and been applied to many sport contexts for marketing purposes. However, there has been little knowledge about the influence of electronic sports games. The current study approached the problem from this perspective and examined influence of electronic football games (EFG) on four different engagement with physical football (i.e., attendance, participation, viewership, and expenditure). Using the questionnaire, the study examined how people enjoy EFG and participate in traditional football engagements and eventually how playing EFG influence traditional football engagements. A total of 235 questionnaires were collected at ‘PC Rooms’ and ‘PlayStation Rooms’. In an effort to find out the influence of frequency and time of playing EFG on traditional football engagements, a regression technique was used. The results revealed that frequency of playing EFG positively influenced attendance of both K League and Korea national football team matches and also on TV viewership of K League and foreign football leagues. In addition, frequency was strong predictor of football-related merchandise consumption. Frequency of EFG, however, negatively influenced on actual football participation. On the other hands, the amount of time per each gaming did not explained any unique variance in attendance and actual football participation. However, time of EFG significantly predicted TV viewership of both K League and foreign football leagues. Lastly, expenditure of football-related merchandises was positively influenced by the amount of time of playing EFG.