Brand and Team Sports Video Games: Is the FIFA Video Game an Antecedent to Soccer Team Loyalty

Global, brand-growth strategies have been common among the world largest soccer teams for decades. However, recently, digital media have created opportunities for teams without lavish marketing budgets to foster brand experiences outside their immediate geographic vicinities. The challenges facing soccer marketers are prioritizing between thousands of digital spaces and creating content influential enough to build loyalty among out-of-market fans. In the fight for growth, soccer video games are largely underutilized. This study will investigate the potential for video games to drive brand growth for soccer teams. Using a combined qualitative and quantitative market research survey of 50 avid gamers, the study will determine whether playing the world’s most popular soccer video game, Electronic Art’s FIFA soccer, is an antecedent to developing loyalty toward a foreign soccer team’s brand. Loyalty is understood as a two-dimensional construct of an attitudinal bias toward a brand combine with consumption behavior involving that brand. In the realms of violence and distal relationship building, social scientists have already proven video games’ ability to influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. As a result, the author hypothesizes that the FIFA soccer video game is an antecedent to soccer team brand loyalty, meaning the game has powerful marketing implications in soccer team brand growth.