Soccer & Society

ISSN: 1466-0970 (Print) 1743-9590 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fsas20

Overcoming American exceptionalism and media

antipathy via the digital pitch: soccer, attitudinal
change, and video game play

Jeffrey W. Kassing

To cite this article: Jeffrey W. Kassing (2020): Overcoming American exceptionalism and media
antipathy via the digital pitch: soccer, attitudinal change, and video game play, Soccer & Society,
DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2020.1746282

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2020.1746282

Published online: 01 Apr 2020.

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SOCCER & SOCIETY
https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2020.1746282

Overcoming American exceptionalism and media antipathy via

the digital pitch: soccer, attitudinal change, and video game play
Jeffrey W. Kassing
School of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

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) foot-
ball, 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.

Viewed as an unamerican, foreign sport in the US historically, and remaining largely a participation
sport,1 soccer has grown steadily in popularity in the country.2 The US orientation towards soccer is
puzzling, seemingly escalating in terms of participation rates and media consumption, but ham-
pered by ongoing resistance in an Americentric US sports culture.3 Soccer in the US has a history of
fits and starts compared to other parts of the world where it rooted effectively and
comprehensively,4 moving through multiple professional league structures that started and failed
on both the men’s and women’s sides5 – and epitomized by efforts to Americanize the game via the
implementation of specific rules (e.g. ending every game with penalty kicks and using a clock that
counts down versus up). But the US has the distinction of being one of the few countries to host
both the men’s and women’s World Cup finals (alongside Germany and France) and was successful
in a bid to host the men’s World Cup final for a second time (albeit as part of a group bid along with
Mexico and Canada). This despite the fact that US sport culture prefers national pastimes (baseball,
basketball and American football) over imported ones like soccer.6
However, the discourse about soccer in the US may be shifting.7 Accordingly, the second game in
group play at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which pitted the USMNT against Portugal, marked
a significant turning point in US discourse about soccer. The discourse unfolding by fans via social
media, was far more informed regarding players and match play than it had been at any point
previously according to Markovits and Green – leading them to conclude that ‘for the first time,
millions of Americans participated in the public discussion revealing a fine degree of knowledge and
awareness’.8 They added that while many reasons accounted for this change in discourse one stands
out as particularly influential, the rise in popularity of the FIFA video game, which has ‘changed
perception of the very real social and cultural construct of “soccer” in the United States’.9

CONTACT Jeffrey W. Kassing jkassing@asu.edu School of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, PO Box
37100, Phoenix, AZ 85069, USA
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. W. KASSING

The sport and sport video game nexus

There is mounting speculation that soccer’s growth in popularity in the US can be attributed, in part
at least, to the popularity of the FIFA video game. Kim and Ross suggested that the sport experience
afforded by video games ‘might give users who are unfamiliar with an actual sport an opportunity to
learn sport brands, sport rules, and strategies when playing sport video games’.10 Similarly,
Crawford in his analysis of sport participation rates vis-à-vis video game play, revisited the claim
that children were playing more sport via video games than actual sport on playing fields and
athletic courts. Often associated with lack of interaction and social isolation, his research tested the
notion that video games were syphoning actual sport participation rates. He found no evidence, in
a population of British university students, that sports video game play affected participation in
sport. Moreover, he uncovered evidence that gaming increased people’s interest in and knowledge
of sport as fans. Crawford suggested that the relationship between gaming and participation in sport
was reciprocal in that ‘Digital gaming can inform and increase both interest and knowledge of sport,
and in turn, interest in sport both as a participant and follower, can encourage some to play digital
versions of these sports’.11
The FIFA video game developed by EA Sports is enormously popular due in large part to its graphic
quality, realistic game play, and its worldwide, comprehensive coverage of soccer teams.12 Furthermore,
the game is updated to reflect player trades from one club to another and injuries during a season. Not
surprisingly it has become EA Sports best-selling offering.13 Those who opt to play FIFA, in turn, stand to
learn the player’s names, statistics, moves, teams, transfers and accomplishments.14
The link between soccer fandom and FIFA video game play was highlighted in an EA Sports
news release15 that borrowed from an earlier ESPN Poll.16 The infographic contains many data
points, with the most compelling being (1) that 38% of EA Sports FIFA players became professional
soccer fans after playing the video game, (2) that 50% of EA Sports FIFA players had more interest
in soccer after playing the video game, and (3) that 95% of Americans who play soccer video games
play EA Sports FIFA. These numbers suggest that the FIFA video game may be serving an
acculturation or indoctrination function – socializing comparatively un(der)informed audiences
in the US about an historically foreign sport. Based on the polling numbers considered against the
sales figures for the year, this roughly equated to 400,000 more people in the US being exposed to
and gaining knowledge about soccer.17

The appeal of sports video games

Player-rating systems are an important part of the appeal of sports video games. The player-rating
system used in FIFA classifies 33 attributes for each individual player that combine to produce an
overall score. These ranked numerical values shape the performance of virtual athletes. The ratings
system influences how athletes respond to one another, and their potential ability in the hands of
a gamer as they provide ‘the engine underneath the increasingly realistic graphics’.18 Baerg offers
a critical assessment of how the player-rating system shapes the gaming experience, noting that the
rating-system fails to account for off-the-pitch events (e.g. family problems, trouble with teammates
and coaches, etc.) that could influence outcomes in preference to attributes tied exclusively to
athletic performance during matches. Moreover, the ratings system underpins the desire to buy and
sell players. Thus, virtual athletes ‘become resources to be supervised, assessed, and deployed in the
service of gamers’ interests’.19
Astonishingly the game developer deploys researchers to scout players around the world to keep
the rating systems realistic and current relative to the actual players’ performances in a given time-
frame as they are updated regularly throughout the season. While the innerworkings of the rating
system remain hidden from gamers,20 the overall ratings produced have become part and parcel of
soccer culture with many major clubs promoting the reveal of player ratings in promotional video
game segments (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Atlanta United). Players’ unhappiness with and
 SOCCER & SOCIETY 3

scepticism about their FIFA ratings have in fact been coopted by EA Sports and now feature in the
campaign used to launch the new edition of the game each year. These advertisements stretch to over
2 minutes and feature a cadre of world-famous players. In the 2018 promotional video players read
and either publicly denounced or enthusiastically applauded the (un)favourable fan tweets posted
about their ratings.21 The 2019 promotional video portrayed actual professional players resorting to all
manner of practices to contest the ratings as part of a larger fictional social movement that apparently
drew widespread and international news coverage.22
In other work, Conway examined the start menus and introductory video of soccer/football
video games. Conway selected soccer as the focus of analysis because it offered video games across
various genres including the televisual (FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer), extreme (i.e. sport in urban
settings/FIFA Street), and management (Football Manager). He found that all three genres differed
in their representation of soccer and how it related to the global-mediated sport complex. The
televisual genre reflected the intersection of sport and technology while ‘positioning the audience as
regular consumers of televised soccer’23 and aligned the sport with the modern entertainment
industry. The extreme and management genres offered an alternative to the global sports-media
complex construal of soccer as a mediated spectacle. The extreme genre placed soccer in conversa-
tion with hip-hop, extreme sports, and street soccer whereas the management genre attracted
dedicated and knowledgeable players as it implicated a complicated and laborious undertaking.
Conway resolved that the genres have little in common and each provides ‘a unique sporting
ideology and subject position for the player to consume and occupy.’24

Video game play, learning, and attitudinal change

There is evidence to suggest that playing video games can produce attitudinal change in users.25 In
fact, video games can be used as educational tools26 and designed with persuasive intent geared
towards changing players’ attitudes about certain people, issues, or objects.27 Researchers have
discovered change related to attitudes towards Israelis and Palestinians,28 as well as the homeless.29
Furthermore, video games have been used as learning tools in a host of industries and contexts
including food service, health care, workplace safety and the military.30
Buckley and Anderson developed the General Learning Model (GLM) to explicate how video
games ‘teach and influence behavior.’31 Accordingly, they consider the role of personal and
situational input variables that predict individual behaviour whereby ‘personal variables include
what a person brings to the current situation’ including ‘attitudes, beliefs, goals, behavioral
tendencies, previous experience, and emotions.’32 Personal variables are relatively consistent over
time and situations. In contrast, situational variables include those factors that feature in a given
environment like media, objects, settings, and other people and include specific game features (e.g.
game content, game exposure, role playing).
In the GLM input variables, in turn, affect people’s responses to video games by influencing one
or more of three interrelated internal states: cognition (thoughts, attributions, beliefs, attitudes),
affect (mood, emotion, motivation, engagement, desensitization), and arousal. Learning occurs
through episodic cycles or learning trials which foster the ‘development of well-rehearsed (and
eventually automatized) knowledge structures of various kinds’.33 This cyclical process leads to
repeated exposure to certain stimuli which in turn results in regularly accessing knowledge
structures, which over time become more automatically adopted. It is through the development,
automatization, and reinforcement of knowledge structures that personality and attitudes shift.
This study applies the GLM of video game play to explore the potential shifts in attitudes and affinity of
US-based players of the FIFA game. US-based video game players come to the FIFA game already more or
less favourably pre-disposed to soccer against the backdrop of the aforementioned Americentric sports
bias. They also vary in the degree to which they engage with the game, which is a relevant situational input
variable. The internal states of gamers, in turn, could be altered by exposure to the game at both cognitive
(specifically attitudes about soccer) and affective (specifically affinity for soccer) levels.
4 J. W. KASSING

Given the potential for the FIFA video game to indoctrinate US-based users about soccer,
favourable attitudes about (a cognitive shift) and affinity for the sport (an affective shift) should
be evident among gamers compared to the general population. Yet there is evidence to suggest that
gamers occupy different subjectivities when playing soccer video games and that they may be
attracted to various elements of those video games.34 Thus, the relationship between gaming,
affinity, and attitudes may not be straightforward. To develop a better understanding of how
these concepts relate to one another, the following research question is posed.

RQ1: Will people who play FIFA report more favorable attitudes about and affinity for soccer
compared to those who do not play?

Game engagement refers to the notion that gamers can become more or less immersed in the
gaming experience.35 Immersion connotes being involved in the game while keeping some awareness
of one’s surroundings and differs from psychological absorption, by contrast, which considers total
engagement in the present experience and the induction of an altered state of consciousness.
Immersion is an important part of the video game playing experience and one that can make it
more or less rewarding. Brockmyer et al. argued ‘that most regular video game players experience some
degree of immersion’.36 As a fundamental situational input variable, game engagement may relate to
attitudes about and affinity for soccer. To explore this possibility a second research question is posed:

RQ2: For FIFA gamers, do soccer attitude and soccer affinity relate to game engagement?

Markovits and Green are careful to identify several other factors that could be contributing to the rise in
popularity of soccer in the US alongside or instead of FIFA. These include the growing popularity of the
domestic professional league (i.e. Major League Soccer or MLS), access to European matches via ever
expanding sports media coverage of soccer, and the increase of summer tours of the US by major
European clubs.37 Thus, Americans can become fans of soccer by following their domestic league or
European leagues. All of which leads to the lingering question about one’s predisposition regarding soccer
(i.e. feelings about and knowledge of the sport) before discovering and engaging in FIFA play. It is quite
possible that any predisposition about soccer one may have (i.e. a personal input variable) will predate and
predetermine one’s attitude about and affinity for the sport. Previous research suggests that reciprocal
relationships exist between sport and sport video games whereby one may shape the inclination to participate
in and be informed about the other.38 One corollary that can be extended, then, from previous work is the
possibility that soccer predisposition may affect amounts of video game play and levels of immersion – in so
much as those more favourably inclined towards soccer might play the video game more and engage with it
to a greater degree. A final research question is offered to assess this possibility:

RQ3: For gamers, does soccer predisposition before playing FIFA relate to the amount of time spent
playing or the game engagement experienced?

Methodology
Sample and data collection procedure
A sample of six hundred eighty-three (N = 683) people participated in this study. Seventy-one
percent of the sample was male and 28% female. Ten respondents (2%) did not report their sex. The
age of participants ranged from 18 to 89 years (M = 37.74, SD = 19.27).
 SOCCER & SOCIETY 5

A survey questionnaire was used to collect data. A purposive sample of gamers who played FIFA
(n = 343) and non-gamers (n = 340) who resided in the United States was sought. This involved
soliciting participation from friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbours. It also included
reaching out to organizations that hosted gaming tournaments and officers of gaming clubs at
various universities. Additionally, a post including a link to the study information appeared on
a Reddit page devoted to the FIFA video game. In all cases, participants received and read a cover
letter describing the purpose of the research, which directed them to the online site where the
survey questionnaire was located. Data collection occurred over a period of 3 months.

Instrumentation
The survey questionnaire was comprised of several measures including: (1) an instrument
measuring attitudes about and affinity for soccer, (2) a measure of game engagement, and (3)
a measure of soccer predisposition. Additionally, how often respondents played FIFA was
assessed. Those in the sample of active gamers completed a questionnaire that contained all of
these measures. Non-gamers completed a questionnaire that only included the measure of
attitudes about and affinity for soccer. The same demographic questions were included in both
versions of the questionnaire.
The measure of attitudes about and affinity for soccer included 17 items, 9 of which were filler
items like ‘Sports are important in America’ and ‘Baseball is American’s pastime’ that were included
to obscure the particular focus on soccer. The remaining 8 items were designed to assess attitudes
about and affinity for soccer (see Appendix 1 for a list of items used). Soccer attitude items referred
to the attitudes participants might hold regarding the sport of soccer, while affinity items assessed
people’s association with and enjoyment of soccer. Participants responded to the measure by using
a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) with higher scores
indicating more favourable attitudes about and greater affinity for soccer. Three of the items in the
soccer attitude scale were reverse-coded before conducting the analysis. Reliability coefficients were
.94 for the 4-item Soccer Attitudes subscale (M = 15.30, SD = 4.24) and .89 for the 4-item Soccer
Affinity subscale (M = 16.54, SD = 4.32).
A selection of items drawn from the Game Engagement Questionnaire were also administered
using a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), with
higher scores indicating higher levels of game engagement.39 Respondents were prompted to
consider how they felt when playing the FIFA game specifically and responded to items that
represented indicators of immersion. The measure produced a coefficient alpha of .66 (M = 21.54,
SD = 4.00).
To determine people’s disposition regarding soccer before they began playing FIFA actively, 4
items prefaced with the prompt ‘Before I ever played FIFA . . . ’ were administered. The prompt was
followed by statements that related to their exposure to and interaction with soccer (α = .95,
M = 14.00, SD = 5.28). Here too a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (1) to
strongly agree (5) was used, with higher scores indicating a more favourable predisposition towards
soccer prior to playing FIFA. Finally, respondents reported how many hours a week on average they
spent playing all types of video games (M = 17.67, SD = 11.25), sports-related video games
(M = 13.82, SD = 9.40), and FIFA specifically (M = 13.19, SD = 9.11).
While attempting to solicit data via self-reports can introduce bias if participants are asked to
report about uncomfortable situations (e.g. drug use, crime) or behaviour about which they are not
particularly mindful (e.g. how often one uses the Internet) those concerns are reduced when
requesting reports about frequent, recent, salient, and distinctive topics.40 Thus, asking a sample
of gamers about a distinctive topic (i.e. how they felt about soccer before they began playing
a soccer-related video game) and about a frequent and salient topic (i.e. how much time they
typically spend playing video games) fall within the suggested parameters that limit potential self-
report biases.
6 J. W. KASSING

Results
T-tests of independent means were used to compare gamers and non-gamers from the overall
sample in terms of soccer attitude and soccer affinity (RQ1). Results indicated that significant
differences in soccer attitudes [t (2,679) = 22.19, p < .00] and soccer affinity [t (2,679) = 17.36,
p < .00] existed. Gamers reported holding more favourable attitudes towards soccer (M = 18.04)
than non-gamers (M = 12.56) and greater affinity for the sport (M = 18.94) compared to non-
gamers (M = 14.15).
To examine if soccer attitude and soccer affinity related to game engagement (RQ2), one-tailed
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were computed. Findings suggest that game
engagement did not correlate significantly with soccer attitude (r = .08, p = .08) or with soccer
affinity (r = .07, p = .09). These findings indicate that neither soccer attitude nor soccer affinity relate
to game engagement.
Finally, t-tests of independent means were employed to ascertain if high or low soccer predis-
position influenced the amount of time gamers spent playing FIFA or how engaged they reported
being with the game (RQ3). Comparison groups were created via a median split of soccer predis-
position (Mdn = 15.00). Respondents above the median comprised the more favourably predis-
posed group, whereas respondents below the median represented the less favourably predisposed
group. Findings indicated that there was not a significant difference in time spent playing FIFA
[t (2,337) = −.56, p < .57] between more favourably predisposed groups (M = 13.44) and less
favourably predisposed groups (M = 12.88). Similarly, there were no significant differences identi-
fied for game engagement [t (2,338) = 1.24,, p = .22] between more favourably predisposed groups
(M = 21.28) and less favourably predisposed groups (M = 21.81).

Discussion
The findings from the data examined here paint an interesting picture. They indicate that people in
the US who play the FIFA video game are by comparison inclined to have more favourable attitudes
about and greater affinity for soccer. That is, they perceive the sport more favourably and enjoy it
more. These findings were quite pronounced. The possibility that attitudinal differences and affinity
could result from the situational input variable of game engagement did not seem applicable either
as game engagement did not relate to soccer attitudes or soccer affinity. This finding suggests that
the degree to which one gets immersed into the actual game has no bearing on their attitude about
and affinity for soccer. Finally, the potential for one’s predisposition (a personal input variable)
about soccer before becoming an active player of FIFA was considered with the idea that it might
determine greater engagement with the game and time committed to playing it. The results, though,
reveal no differences between groups that were more or less favourably predisposed to soccer before
playing FIFA with regard to game engagement or time spent playing.
Taken together these findings offer some key implications. First, the game does seem to be
advancing some sort of indoctrination to gamers in the US, legitimizing soccer as a sport and
cultivating an affinity for it. Second, other relevant factors (i.e. personal and situational input
variables) like game engagement and soccer predisposition do not appear to influence soccer
attitudes and affinity in the gamer population. These conclusions align with previous work that
signals the capacity for video games to mobilize learning and attitudinal change41 generally and
validate previous indicators that FIFA was a critical factor contributing to the advancement of
soccer culture in the US.42
Persuasive video games combine entertainment, learning, and persuasion intentionally with the
purpose of changing players’ attitudes and perceptions.43 A similar process appears to be at work in
this instance as FIFA gamers develop stronger attitudes about and affinity for the subject of soccer
through their game play. According to the GLM model of video game play this occurs over time and
through repeated exposure that produce changes in the cognitive and affective states of users. What
 SOCCER & SOCIETY 7

differs is the question of intentionality. The aforementioned promotion of the game by EA Sports
acknowledges the persuasive possibilities of the game, but does not necessarily implicate EA Sports
as a persuasive actor. That is, there is no evidence to suggest that EA Sports designed FIFA to be
a persuasive game, yet it seemingly achieves some degree of persuasive agency. This is likely due to
the fact that persuasion, akin to intentionally designed persuasive games, occurs indirectly. Thus,
games not explicitly intended to be persuasive also may be benefitting from indirect persuasive
mechanisms – mainly requiring players to make decisions and act in order to advance in the game.
This would explain why FIFA appears to be shaping the attitudes and orientation about soccer in
the US.
Another explanation for this outcome derives from the televisual nature of the FIFA video
game.44 EA Sports have designed a game that depicts soccer as entertaining and exciting, which
contrasts with how US sports media outlets have historically and routinely portrayed the sport.45
The introductory video borrows heavily from televisual cues including shots panning the stadium,
slow motion sequences, and crowd noise. All of this combines to elicit a sense of excitement about
the sport before one even begins to play the game. Similarly, the inclusion and placement of replay
capabilities after scoring a goal engages common practices of modern sport consumption. Through
these attributes EA Sports has created a game that entices newcomers to the game and sport with
televisual appeal and sport entertainment. This too may provide the video game with a particular
persuasive sheen.
As an early empirical assessment of how FIFA might be reshaping US attitudes and affinity for
soccer this work is important, but also limited. Further research is necessary to consider other
possible personal and situational input variables beyond game engagement and soccer predisposition,
and to explore how the indoctrinating capabilities of FIFA might play out differently for specific
populations and types of gamers.46 Moreover, additional research is necessary to explore the specific
elements of the game that may be contributing to its persuasive capabilities. And in a similar vein,
work that considers the persuasive possibilities of other soccer video games as well as other sport
video games might prove valuable. This could be revealing particularly for sport video games being
played in places where the actual sport is less popular. Such a comparison would help determine if the
effects revealed here are unique to soccer and the FIFA game or if they are generalizable to other
sports and their video game equivalents. Given these limitations and the considerable possibilities for
future research, the results unearthed here clearly do support the previously held position that FIFA
has influenced soccer attitudes in an otherwise soccer resistant space.

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’.
8 J. W. KASSING

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’.
 SOCCER & SOCIETY 9

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.

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10 J. W. KASSING

Appendix 1. List of Survey Questionnaire Items

Soccer Attitude Items

(1) Soccer is boring to watch.

(2) Soccer is not as appealing as other American sports.
(3) More Americans should follow soccer.
(4) Soccer is fun to watch.

Soccer Affinity Items

(1) I follow soccer as a sport.

(2) I like soccer.
(3) Soccer is one of my favourite sports.
(4) I enjoy watching soccer.

Game Engagement Questionnaire

(1) I lose track of time.

(2) If someone talks to me, I don’t hear them.
(3) I get wound up.
(4) I can’t tell when I am getting tired.
(5) I lose track of where I am
(6) I play without thinking about how to play.
(7) I really get into the game.

Soccer Predisposition

(1) I watched soccer regularly.

(2) I followed soccer closely.
(3) I enjoyed watching soccer.
(4) I knew a lot about soccer