Overcoming American exceptionalism and media antipathy via the digital pitch: soccer, attitudinal change, and video game play

ABSTRACT

This study explored if the FIFA video game influenced attitudes about and affinity for soccer. In the US soccer has been construed as a foreign sport played by immigrants and has suffered from media antipathy – failing to gain traction against home-grown sports like basketball, (American) football, and baseball. The FIFA video game, the most popular sports video game in the world, however may be changing the perception of soccer in the US. To test this premise a survey questionnaire was distributed to a population of gamers and non-gamers. Results indicated that those who played FIFA did in fact have more favourable attitudes about and affinity for soccer compared to non-gamers. Furthermore, game engagement did not appear to influence attitudes about and affinity for soccer and how one felt about soccer before playing FIFA did not produce differences in immersion with the game or time spent playing it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, JK, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. Van Reenen, ‘The Promise of Soccer in American: The Open Play of Ethnic Subcultures’.

2. Delgado, ‘Major League Soccer: Return of the Foreign Sport’; Novak and Billings, ‘The Fervent, the Ambivalent, and the Great Gap Between: American Print-Media Coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup’.

3. Novak and Billings, ‘The Fervent, the Ambivalent, and the Great Gap Between: American Print-Media Coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup’.

4. Delgado, ‘Major League Soccer: Return of the Foreign Sport’; Sonntag, ‘Germany’.

5. Delgado, ‘Major League Soccer: Return of the Foreign Sport’; Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

6. Van Reenen, ‘The Promise of Soccer in American: The Open Play of Ethnic Subcultures’.

7. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

8. Ibid., 718.

9. Ibid., 719.

10. Kim and Ross, ‘The Effect of Sport Video Game Gaming on Sport Brand Attitude, Attitude Strength, and the Attitude-Behavior Relationship’, 658.

11. Crawford, ‘Digital Gaming, Sport and Gender’, 268.

12. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

13. Higgins, ‘FIFA Video Game Taking Off in America’.

14. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

15. EA Sports, ‘By the numbers: EA Sports FIFA and the Growth of Soccer in the US’. https://www.ea.com/games/fifa/fifa-19/news/ea-sports-fifa-and-the-impact-on-soccer-in-the-usa.

16. Luker, ‘EA Sports FIFA and the Growth of Soccer in the US’.

17. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

18. Baerg, ‘Classifying the Digital Athletic Body: Assessing the Implications of the Player-

Attribute-Rating System in Sports Video Games’, 136.

19. Ibid., 144.

20. Ibid.

21. FIFA 18 Player Ratings Reveal. YouTube video, 2:26, posted by ‘EA Sports,’ 5 September 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgL8jqcABSc.

22. FIFA 19 Player Ratings: Join the Debate. YouTube video, 2:46, posted by ‘EA Sports,’ 6 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHg5w4MJF98.

23. Conway, ‘Starting at Start: An Exploration of the Nondiegetic in Soccer Video Games’, 84.

24. Ibid., 85.

25. Alhabash and Wise, ‘Playing their Game: Changing Stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through Videogame Play’; Kampf and Cuhadar, ‘Do Computer Games Enhance Learning about Conflicts? A Cross-National Inquiry into Proximate and Distant Scenarios in Global Conflicts’; Ruggiero, ‘The Effect of a Persuasive Social Impact Game on Affective Learning and Attitude’.

26. Martí-Parreño, Galbis-Córdova, and Miquel-Romero, ‘Students’ Attitude Towards the Use of Educational Video Games to Develop Competencies’.

27. Alhabash and Wise, ‘Playing their Game: Changing Stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through Videogame Play’; Ruggiero, ‘The Effect of a Persuasive Social Impact Game on Affective Learning and Attitude’.

28. Alhabash and Wise, ‘Playing their Game: Changing Stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through Videogame Play’; Kampf and Cuhadar, ‘Do Computer Games Enhance Learning about Conflicts? A Cross-National Inquiry into Proximate and Distant Scenarios in Global Conflicts’.

29. Ruggiero, ‘The Effect of a Persuasive Social Impact Game on Affective Learning and Attitude’.

30. Buckley and Anderson, ‘A Theoretical Model of the Effects and Consequences of Playing Video Games’.

31. Ibid., 369.

32. Ibid., 369.

33. Ibid., 374.

34. Baerg, ‘Classifying the Digital Athletic Body: Assessing the Implications of the Player-

Attribute-Rating System in Sports Video Games’; Conway, ‘Starting at Start: An Exploration of the Nondiegetic in Soccer Video Games’; Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

35. Brockmyer, Fox, Curtis, McBroom, Burkhart, and Pidruzny, ‘The Development of the Game Engagement Questionnaire: A Measure of Engagement in Video Game-playing’.

36. Ibid., 624.

37. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

38. Crawford, ‘Digital Gaming, Sport and Gender’.

39. Brockmyer, Fox, Curtis, McBroom, Burkhart, and Pidruzny, ‘The Development of the Game Engagement Questionnaire: A Measure of Engagement in Video Game-playing’.

40. Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, ‘Thinking about Answers: The Application of cognitive Processes to Survey Methodology’; Tourangeau, Rips, and Rasinski, ‘The Psychology of survey Response’.

41. Alhabash and Wise, ‘Playing their Game: Changing Stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through Videogame Play’; Buckley and Anderson, ‘A Theoretical Model of the Effects and Consequences of Playing Video Games’; Kampf and Cuhadar, ‘Do Computer Games Enhance Learning about Conflicts? A Cross-National Inquiry into Proximate and Distant Scenarios in Global Conflicts’; Ruggiero, ‘The Effect of a Persuasive Social Impact Game on Affective Learning and Attitude’.

42. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.

43. Alhabash and Wise, ‘Playing their Game: Changing Stereotypes of Palestinians and Israelis through Videogame Play’.

44. Conway, ‘Starting at Start: An Exploration of the Nondiegetic in Soccer Video Games’, 84.

45. Delgado, ‘Major League Soccer: Return of the Foreign Sport’.

46. Markovits and Green, ‘FIFA, the Video Game: A Major Vehicle for Soccer’s Popularization in the United States’.