Identifying The Motivations And Behavior Of Consuming Sports Goods In Iranian E-Sports Players

E-sports is an emerging but very powerful, important and effective phenomenon in the market, behavior and even the culture of the young generation of our country. By focusing on the motivational and behavioral patterns of electronic sports consumption, a relatively new aspect of electronic sports can be investigated to determine whether the consumption of electronic sports is an independent market or can affect the non-electronic sports market. be According to the existing theoretical foundations about the behavioral indicators of sports consumers, we find that seven indicators "1-Participation in the game (players) 2-Presence in the game (organizing and executive factors) 3-Watching sports 4-Sports readers 5-Listeners Sports 6-using the internet for sports and 7-buying team goods" are the most important indicators in this regard (Chen & etal., 2018; Solomon & etal., 2017). In examining this relatively new phenomenon, an important question that arises is whether there is a relationship between the consumption of electronic sports and the consumption of non-electronic sports? If marketers know the motivational and behavioral factors of electronic sports consumers, they can create a link to attract potential customers from the large population of these players for their sports products. Therefore, this research seeks to answer the question, what are the motivational and behavioral indicators of the consumption of sports goods in Iranian e-sports players? Considering the important role of electronic sports in sports marketing in the era of digital communication, this study was conducted with the aim of identifying the motivations and behavior of sports goods consumption among electronic sports players in Iran. The statistical population of the research was made up of electronic sports players in Iran. Sampling was done targeting the population over 18 years old. The sampling of electronic sports users was done from the Instagram pages of the National Electronic Sports Association of Iran, the Electronic Sports League of Iran, and also visiting the available electronic game clubs in the cities of Tehran and Ahvaz. To sample electronic sports clubs from searching on the Google map to access 4 and 5 star items from the point of view. Since the questionnaire of this research was designed and prepared electronically on the Google Form page, it was quickly and easily available to the samples. To create a research questionnaire from the survey instrument of the study of Lee & etal. (2010) was adapted and also included scales from Kim & Ross (2006) and Sherry & etal. (2006) was. Lee & etal. (2010) introduced new items that represent 14 motivations for e-sports consumption, which are; Social interaction, fantasy, similarity to sport, deviance, competition, entertainment, sport application, arousal, design/graphics, game time, control, skill similar to real sports, permanence and peer pressure. Also, seven items were added to measure the consumption of non-electronic sports by electronic sports players, which are; Participating in sports, watching televised sports, purchasing team merchandise, using the Internet for sports, using sports print media, listening to sports radio, and attending sports games. In the study of Lee & etal. (2010), the reliability of the scale with Cronbach's alpha was reported as 0.87 in an American sample. From the selected sample in this research (n=600), 561 electronic answer sheets were collected at first, after removing incomplete items, 512 fields were considered acceptable and their data were used in the analysis of findings and results. In the present study, before collecting the main data, the reliability and validity of the instrument were tested and in the initial distribution of 100 copies, the reliability was calculated with Cronbach's alpha of 0.79.
Sampling was done targeting the population over 18 years old. The sampling of electronic sports users was done from the Instagram pages of the National Electronic Sports Association of Iran, the Electronic Sports League of Iran, and also visiting the available electronic game clubs in the cities of Tehran and Ahvaz. To sample electronic sports clubs, Google map search was used to access 4 and 5 star items from the customers' point of view. Since the questionnaire of this research was designed and prepared electronically on the Google Form page, it was quickly and easily provided to the samples. To create a research questionnaire from the survey instrument of the study of Lee & etal. (2010) was adapted and also included scales from Kim & Ross (2006) and Sherry & etal. (2006) was. Lee & etal. (2010) introduced new items that represent 14 motivations for e-sports consumption, which are; Social interaction, fantasy, similarity to sport, deviance, competition, entertainment, sport application, arousal, design/graphics, game time, control, skill similar to real sports, permanence and peer pressure. Also, seven items were added to measure the consumption of non-electronic sports by electronic sports players, which are; Participating in sports, watching televised sports, purchasing team merchandise, using the Internet for sports, using sports print media, listening to sports radio, and attending sports games. In the study of Lee & etal. (2010), the reliability of the scale with Cronbach's alpha was reported as 0.87 in an American sample. From the selected sample in this research (n=600), 561 electronic answer sheets were collected at first, after removing incomplete items, 512 fields were considered acceptable and their data were used in the analysis of findings and results. In the present study, before collecting the main data, the reliability and validity of the instrument were tested and in the initial distribution of 100 copies, the reliability was calculated with Breyer's Cronbach's alpha of 0.79. The findings showed that 86.3% of the research participants were male and 13.7% of them were female. Most of the respondents were between 18 and 32 years old (79.32%). The average age of the research participants was 25.32 years. A set of 14 main motivations was identified. In the main set, entertainment had the highest mean (5.03) while knowledge had the lowest mean (3.35). The correlation between fourteen known motivations varied between 0.08 and 0.70. The correlation between the consumption of electronic sports and seven motivational indicators of non-electronic sports in research participants varied between -0.04 (radio sports) and 0.29 (internet sports). Among the seven correlations examined, five were statistically significant. Based on these findings, five Venn diagrams were drawn to show the overlap between the consumption of e-sports and selective participation in non-e-sports in research participants. Multiple regression analysis showed that, at the univariate level, entertainment, identification with sports, peer pressure, competition, and building skills for real sports had a statistically significant effect on the time spent in electronic sports games. All selected factors explained a total of 11.13% of the measurement variance.
The findings showed that accompanying sports, participating in sports, sports television, Internet for sports and buying sports goods had a significant relationship with the consumption of electronic games, but the consumption of sports press and sports radio had no significant relationship with electronic sports. The results of multiple regression showed that the motivation to create fun, identification with sports, competition, acquiring skills similar to sports and peer pressure had a statistically significant effect on the time spent in electronic sports games. According to these results, marketers can provide a better opportunity for the sports products market by creating custom messages that drive the consumption behaviors of the target audience towards specific electronic sports games and achieve their strategic goals for increasing purchases and larger shares.