Factors affecting loyalty of the purchase decision makers and players to the brand sports apparel of the Premier League football clubs

Today, the brand's customer loyalty is key to business success, many companies try to increase loyalty among customers to expand their brand. The aim of this study was to identify factors influencing the loyalty of purchase decision makers of the clubs and football players to sports apparel brand in the eleventh round of the Premier League. Methodology of this research was surveying and population of this research formed as sports apparel purchase decision makers in the Premier League football clubs of Iran(the director and deputy director of the club, and the head coach and team coaches N=90)and the players who participated in the eleventh round of Premier League football (463= N).The study sample included 60 individuals purchasing decision makers in clubs and 263 people of Premier League football players of Iran. Questionnaire data collection tool for brand loyalty was Wong Foong and yahyah (2008) with reliability of (α=0.82). Face and content validity of the questionnaire was verified by masters of sport marketing and confirmed by sport management. To analyse data Kolmogorov Smirnov test, ANOVA (analysis of variance) with repeated measures, a comparison Bunfrony test and independent t-tests at a significance level of 0.05 was conducted with spss19 software were used. The results showed that the factors of the product quality, model and brand of sports was more effective than other factors in loyaltyofsportsapparel brand and factors of service quality and price perspective, No significant difference between group of purchasing decision makers and players in the Premier League football clubs of Iran were found. Therefore, program managers sports apparel industry planners should try to create or modify models to increase brand loyalty and products quality and using innovative strategies of develop and promote service quality and pricing to expand their brand through customers. Moreover provide basis increasing rate of customers loyalty and thus provide the long-term interests of their business.