The Effect of Self-Definitional Need Elements on Brand Equity of Iran Football Premier League Clubs

Success in sport marketing requires special attention to the quality of the relationship between fans and sport teams. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of self-definitional need elements on brand equity in Iran football premier league clubs. The research method was descriptive – correlation, survey and applied. The data were collected by Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) distinction identity, similarity identity, and prestige identity standard questionnaires as well as Yoo and Donthu (2001) brand equity questionnaire. The research population consisted of fans of Iran football premier league popular teams and 200 subjects were randomly selected as the sample. The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by viewpoints of sport management and business management experts and their reliability was evaluated by Chronbach alpha. PLS and SPSS18 were used for data analysis. The results showed that all directions were verified (P<0.05). Also, self-definitional needs involving similarity identity, distinction identity, and prestige identity, had positive and significant effects on brand equity of Iran football premier league teams.