Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the changes in psychological attitudes toward a specific J. LEAGUE club before, after, and three months after the implementation of eSports. The focus is on changes in psychological attitudes toward a specific club when a specific J. LEAGUE club is used in soccer-type eSports. The experiment was conducted using the soccer game “FIFA 18”. In the experiment, a league of 6 players was created, and each player played one game per day (10 minutes) for 5 days per week (excluding holidays), for a total of 10 games over a 2-week period. All participants were instructed to use the same J. LEAGUE club during the two-week league. A pre-survey was conducted before the experiment began, followed by the 2-week league matches, and a post-survey was conducted after the league matches were completed. The survey was administered again three months after the experiment was completed. The analysis used a one-way analysis of variance with correspondence to check for significant differences, and multiple comparisons were done to check for significant portions. The results of this study showed that psychological attitudes toward the club were significantly higher after the implementation of eSports oppose to before. In addition, no significant differences were found between after the implementation of eSports and 3 months after the implementation of eSports for all items except for the intention to watch the game. The results of this study suggest that repeated implementation of eSports may strengthen and help maintain psychological attitudes toward a particular J. LEAGUE club over time.
