The Effects of the Asian Quota System and Strategies on Expansion of Korean Wave of Sport: A Case of the Korean Professional Volleyball League

Participants

Purposeful sampling and snowball sampling were used to select study participants. The research participants consisted of experts with practical experience and insight into the sustainable development of Korean professional volleyball, media officials with knowledge of professional volleyball, and volleyball fans who are direct consumers. Participants consisted of 5 volleyball federation and club officials, 5 media officials, and 5 volleyball fans who were direct consumers, a total of 15 people. Federation and club officials have more than 8 years of experience, and media officials have more than 5 years of experience who are constantly producing professional volleyball-related coverage and contents and are currently active. Volleyball fans regularly watched the game and selected fans with high interest. As shown in Table 1, in order to avoid bias in the research results, we tried to increase diversity by considering the gender, age, and career of each group of respondents. First, as the main consumer group, participants consisted of individuals aged 20–40 years and taking into account the number of female respondents in each group. Furthermore, we broadened the range of professional experience from 4 to 15 years. According to Taylor (2011), using insiders in a qualitative study can be advantageous due to the rapport already established with the researcher, which increases the reliability of the data collected, it also has the disadvantage of a propensity to omit or barely cover well-known information or sensitive issues. In order to ensure an adequate ratio of insiders to non-insiders and to establish a sufficiently strong relationship with non-insiders during in-depth interviews, extra attention was taken. Table 1 shows the general information of the participants.

Data Collection

The researcher met the participants in person from April 1 to May 5, 2023, conducted interviews 2–3 times per person and averaged about an hour per session, and collected and analyzed data through recording. An open-ended questionnaire survey was provided to participants in order to acquire thorough data on the study issue. The use of an open-ended questionnaire can avoid influence from the researcher’s subjective opinions and so directly reflects the interviewees’ opinions. The principal researcher developed the open-ended questions based on the technique presented in the existing qualitative research paradigm and previous studies.

In the first interview, an unstructured interview was conducted to focus on collecting various data, and in the second and subsequent interviews, data were collected using structured questions. In addition, additional information was collected through phone calls and messengers when additional confirmation of the data was required after the second interview was conducted. The interview questionnaire was constructed based on previous research on the influence of foreign players on professional sports leagues: (1) Jewell (2017)’s study on the influence of famous foreign players on the American professional soccer league, (2) Mills & Fort (2014)’s study on the relationship between foreign players, spectators and league revenue, and (3) Royuela & Gásquez (2019)’s study on the competitiveness of league and sports clubs. The detailed questions based on previous research were composed of the level of the league, the competitiveness of the league, spectators, revenue, and finally questions that could lead to free answers from the research participants. The key questions of the interview are shown in Table 2.

Data Analysis

Based on the collected data, text analysis was conducted by transcription, encoding, and the meaning generation stage (Patton, 1990). First of all, based on the transcribed data, keywords generated using Python (ver. 3.10) were organized by frequency, and keywords were extracted and visualized using the word cloud method. The data categorized through the text analysis were regrouped into related themes and derived as higher categories through a conceptualization process. Finally, the expected effects of the introduction of the Asian quota system in the Korean professional volleyball league were generated, and the contents of the transcript data and the categorized results were compared to ensure that the meaning was properly reflected without being distorted.

Validity and Reliability of the Data

Triangulation, peer debriefing, and member check were conducted to enhance the validity and truthfulness regarding the contents of the open-ended questionnaire and in-depth interviews. For the triangulation, expert audit review with three professors majoring in sports management and sports psychology have experience in in-depth interviews and qualitative research were conducted to improve objectivity and logic by reviewing data such as questionnaire items, contents, and research results. The experts acted as critical friends for peer debriefing to enhance the rigor and quality of the data. At last, member check was done to verify the accuracy and validity of the data collection with participants.

Before the in-depth interview was done, each participant was given all pertinent information and knowledge, including the researcher’s affiliation, contact information, and the objective and methodology of the research, to ensure compliance with the ethical requirements of the study. They were also given thorough explanations of how their private information will be kept private and kept from the public.Figure 1

Keyword Analysis

As a result of analysis through open-ended questionnaire and in-depth interview, frequently appeared keywords were as follows: Performance enhancement, competitiveness, new fans, fun, revenue, broadcasting rights, merchandise, sponsorship, Southeast Asia, globalization, social integration, multiculturalism, volleyball agents, volleyball K-wave, Korea-Thailand women’s volleyball all-stars.

As a result of keyword analysis of responses from volleyball stakeholders, including volleyball fans, expectations for the introduction of the Asian Quota were high, and positive perceptions of the introduction of the system were stronger than negative perceptions. First of all, the main opinion regarding the negative perceptions was that as the number of foreign players increased, opportunities for domestic players to compete in games would decrease and barriers to professional advancement for amateur and student players would increase. This opinion can be seen as a concern that the competitiveness of Korean players will decrease and their skill growth will be slow from a long-term perspective. Although there are concerns that there will be fewer seats for domestic players, most of the participants cited the expectation that the introduction of the Asian quota system would improve the performance and competitiveness of the Korean professional leagues. There was an opinion that the capabilities of Asian players selected from each club would become the team’s main players. In addition, some players already had experience as national-team players in their countries, so they expected the overall performance of Korean professional volleyball to improve due to the participation of Asian quota players. Participants expected that the introduction of the Asian quota system would attract new audiences to Korean professional volleyball and form a new fandom. Since most of the players selected for the Asian Quota are symbolic in their country and represent the country, there was an opinion that volleyball fans in that country would be more interested in Korean professional volleyball. The introduction of this Asian quota was regarded as an opportunity for Korean professional volleyball to become global. The federation and club officials considered the introduction of the Asian quota system as an opportunity to generate new profits in Korean professional volleyball, and there were answers that they would provide financial help. In addition, social integration in a multicultural society due to Asian mercenary players and the growth of the volleyball agent industry were presented as expected effects. Based on the transcribed content, the expected effects of the introduction of the Asian quota system were classified into league performance, influx of new fans, revenue generation, and other opinions, and the representative answers of the participants were organized and analyzed.

Expectations for Improving League Performance and Competitiveness

As a result of the analysis, participants’ the opinion that the Asian quota system would improve the league’s performance and competitiveness were predominant. Among the expected effects of the Asian quota system, improvement in performance was the highest. In particular, domestic media officials highly evaluated the skills and performance of Asian players selected for the Asian quota tryout for the 2023–2024 season and fans were also looking forward to their performance. The result of previous study, Jeon & Maeng (2015), partially supports the results of this study that the most fundamental reason for the introduction of the foreign player system in domestic professional sports is to improve the competitiveness of domestic players and to show more spectacular play to fans. In addition, Korean professional sports are limited to the supply and demand of high-quality players, so Kim (2020)’s study that the introduction of foreign players’ attempts to level the team power and improve the competitiveness of the league supports the results of this study. Similar to the expected effects of introducing foreign players in the previous studies, the main expected effect of introducing an Asian quota in this study is the improvement in the level and competitiveness of the league. The specific answers related to the league’s performance and competitiveness are as follows.

Expectations for the Influx of New Fans (Audience) and Globalization of the League

Federation and club officials expected the introduction of the Asian quota system to attract new fans and expand and globalize the V-League in the Asian market. The Asian players who will play in the Korean professional volleyball league are symbolic of their country’s volleyball world. There was a response that if they play in the V-League, interest from volleyball fans in their country will increase and the V-League can rise to an international level. Apart from the introduction of the Asian quota system, interest in Korean women’s volleyball and players is already high in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia (Jeon et al., 2022). The Korean wave of Korean women’s volleyball in Southeast Asia is currently on going, and the introduction of the Asian Quarter for Korean professional volleyball can be expected to have a more positive effect in terms of league expansion. The globalization of the league revealed in this study can be expected that the Asian quota system will become a catalyst for a more effective volleyball Korean wave in the already existing volleyball Korean wave. Media officials expressed that the globalization of Korean professional volleyball and the expansion of the base of the Korean volleyball wave will be expanded due to the introduction of the Asian quota system along with the existing volleyball Korean wave. Specific answers related to the globalization of the league are as follows.

Expectations of Economic Effects and Revenue Generation

Participants expressed that the introduction of the Asian Quota can expect economic effects for the V-League and clubs. Through an interview, it was revealed that as new fans flowed in and a fandom for Korean professional volleyball was formed in the Asian region, profits could be expected through sales of broadcasting rights, sales of merchandise, the attraction of sponsors, and the development of sports tourism products. The effect of introducing the Asian Quota is not only to improve game performance and present spectacular scenes to fans but also to achieve additional revenue generation effects and maximize profits for leagues and clubs. Exporting Korean professional volleyball content and related products to generate profits and attract new sponsors will help the league’s finances. Korea’s professional volleyball is producing economic effects by actively creating tourist attractions based on the Korean Wave, such as filming locations for dramas, streets, and restaurants featured in movies, and local attractions used as backgrounds for music videos (An & Lee, 2015). It is also possible to develop various types of tour packages, such as stadium tours and tour products linked to game viewing. In other words, the economic expectation effect shown in this study shows results in line with previous studies on the analysis of the economic expectation effect of popular culture, the Korean Wave. The detailed answers on the economic effects of the study participants are as follows.

Other Expected Effects

Participants mentioned competitive performance, globalization, and economic effects as representative expected effects of the introduction of the Asian Quota, but answered that other effects such as multicultural social integration and development of the volleyball agent industry could be obtained. It is true that there are currently many multicultural families in Korea and many foreign workers who do hard work in their places. They need a medium to comfort them in their difficult life in a foreign country. There was an answer from participants that if symbolic players who would soothe their nostalgia for their home country played in the V-League, it would be easier for them to adapt to Korean society and culture. In a multicultural society, sports play a role in social integration. This result partially supported by the previous study that previous research by Kim (2014) partially supports the results of this study. Participants also commented that the introduction of the Asian quota system would lead to active transfer of players and the development of the volleyball agent industry. Korea’s currently insufficient volleyball agent system is a point where systematic system establishment and development can be expected due to the introduction of the Asian quota.