Afsane Sharifi; Mohammad Ali Aslankhani; Farshad Tojari; Ali Asghar Doroudian
Abstract
Brand is the most iconic aspect of the sports industry and the fans are the largest consumer of sports brands. Therefore, the focus on the fans loyalty in sports, especially football, is a concern for many sports clubs managers. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to design SEM model ...
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Brand is the most iconic aspect of the sports industry and the fans are the largest consumer of sports brands. Therefore, the focus on the fans loyalty in sports, especially football, is a concern for many sports clubs managers. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to design SEM model of fans loyalty in Iran football premier league based on service brand dimensions. The statistical populationwere include of Iran football premier League fans. For this purpose, 384 fans selected as sample using available targeted sampling.
To collect data, the service brand loyalty questionnaire of Krystallis and Chrysochou (2014) was used. The validity and reliability were confirmed. Multivariate regression and structural equations were used to analyze data. The result showed positive significant impact(sig<0.50) of brand hearsay on brand evidence (0.76) and brand attitude(0.53), brand attitude on satisfaction(0.80), satisfaction on brand attitude(0.26) and brand attitude on fans loyalty. Also, the effect of brand hearsay on satisfaction and brand evidence on brand attitude was not significant. But all the variables directly and indirectly affected on fans loyalty. It is also observed that brand attitude has the most impact on the fans loyalty. Therefore, club managers are recommended to attract and retain fans by relying on their assets and opportunities and benefit from the advantages of loyal fans, including earning money and confronting competitors.
