e-Sports Engagement: Motivational Antecedents and Marketing Outcomes
(A2020-63368)

AUTHORS

IREM EREN ERDOGMUS, MARMARA UNIVERSITY; GOKHAN ESEN, MARMARA UNIVERSITY

KEYWORDS

e-Sports; engagement; sponsorship

ABSTRACT

Recent years witnessed e-Sports to become one of the fastest-growing sports branches, which promise advertising, and sponsorship opportunities for brands. This research aims to understand the spectator motivations to engage in e-Sports, and how motivations and engagement influence their purchase intention towards products advertised during e-Sports events and/or products of official e-Sports sponsors. A research model was proposed, data was collected from 436 e-Sports spectators, and tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that engagement in e-Sports plays a key role in drawing consumers’ attention to products advertised during e-Sports events and/or products of official e-Sports sponsors, and creates purchase intention. e-Sports engagement, on the other hand, is mainly driven by parasocial interaction between the e-Sports spectators and players. The study adds to the extant literature on e-Sports marketing, which is in its infancy and creates insight for the sponsoring brands, e-Sports marketers, and players.