The Effect of Sense of Brand Community on Attendance in Stadium and Media Consumption in IRAN Football Pro-League Spectators: The Mediating Role of Perceived Risk

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of sense of brand community ‎ on attendance and media consumption among football Pro-League spectators through the mediator role of ‎ perceived risk.

The target population included football spectators of the sixteenth season of IRAN Pro-League, such that 365 people ‎were selected through random- available sampling as the samples of this study. Sense of brand community ‎ was measured‎ by Hedland’s questionnaire (2011) ‎, with the reliability (α=.96), and, consequently, attendance, media consumption and perceived risk were measured by the researcher-made questionnaires (α=.70, α=.82, and α=.91, respectively).‎ furthermore, the questionnaire’s face validity was investigated according to some field-specialist sport management scholars. Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the ‎data.

The results showed‎ that sense of brand community has a positive and significant ‎effect on attendance in stadium and sport media consumption, and it has negative and‎ significant ‎effects on perceived risk. In addition, the perceived risk has a negative and significant ‎effect on attendance in stadium, and has‎ it positive and ‎ significant effect on sport media consumption. Furthermore, indirect results showed that perceived risk ‎ acted as a mediator between the sense of brand community ‎and attendance in stadium.

To increase spectators’ attendance in stadium it is essential to ‎reinforce the fan community and consider the factors that increase‎ perceived risks.‎