Predicting South African consumers' physical-virtual esports participation intentions: Extending the theory of planned behaviour

Abstract

As consumers move further into a digital metaverse, the increasing uptake of virtual sports across generations is unsurprising. In 2023,  the conventional esports market generated approximately $1.87 billion in global revenue and gained recognition at an Olympic level.  Among the first, this study aimed to increase awareness of an emerging esports format, namely physical-virtual esports (PVeSp). As per  the suggested definition, this esports format requires the users’ bodily movement to play a virtual game, including virtual cycling,  running, dancing, golf, virtual reality (VR), fitness and taekwondo. As esports become more popular on the international level, it is limited  to developed nations. More crucial limitations relate to the dearth of research investigating this novel topic, specifically consumers’  participation background, perceptions and behaviour. This study provides a departure point and extends the theory of planned  behaviour (TPB) to include awareness and perceived cost to explain South African consumers’ PVeSp participation intentions. Following a  descriptive online survey and cross-sectional approach, data were collected from a nonprobability purposive sample of 474 South African  adult consumers aged 18 to 56 years. A participation prediction model, using SPSS and AMOS Graphics V29, was developed after executing several statistical analyses, comprising principal components (PC) and descriptive statistics analyses, a one-sample t-test,  bivariate correlation analyses and collinearity diagnostics, followed by structural equation modelling (SEM). The model’s reliability and  validity and the outcomes of hypotheses testing were confirmed during these analyses. The main finding was that the TPB was  successfully extended with awareness and the perceived cost, and served as a valuable tool to predict South African consumers’ PVeSp  participation intentions. Furthermore, the results suggest that South African consumers’ attitude (β = .68, p = .000, p < .001) and  perceived behavioural control (β = .65, p = .002, p < .01) had a statistically significant positive influence, whereas perceived cost (β = –.09, p  = .004, p < .01) negatively influenced their PVeSp participation intentions. The South African consumers surveyed were not yet quite  familiar (β = –.64, p = .298, p > .01) with PVeSp and also did not consider it a social norm (β = .08, p = .108, p > .01). The findings hold  profound theoretical, practical, managerial as well as policy implications and recommendations for scholars and industry stakeholders.