Presenting a Developed Model of the Causal Factors of Team Brand Experience and Sponsor Brand Experience

Brand experience plays an important role in creating a competitive advantage for the organization. Therefore, the aim of this study was to presenting a developed model of the causal factors of team brand experience and sponsor brand experience.

The current study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was descriptive from type of correlation. The research population was experts in the field of sports marketing, especially football, officials and board members of the Football Federation and Premier League clubs, and players and coaches working at the professional levels of football, which 400 people of them were selected as a sample with using a purposive sampling method. The research tools were researcher-made questionnaires of team brand experience and sponsor brand experience, which were completed online by samples, and its formal and content validity was confirmed by the opinion of experts, and their reliability was evaluated appropriate with Cronbach's alpha and combined methods. Data were analyzed with exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling methods in SPSS26 and Smart PLS3 software at a significance level of 0.05.

The findings showed that the questionnaires of 16 people from the samples were removed from the analysis due to being incomplete, and the analyzes were performed for 384 people. Also, the results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that the team brand experience has 10 components in the 4 dimensions of the club's role (with 4 components of club performance, team performance, player performance and management effort and follow-up), team brand imagery (with 2 components of developing the club's positive image and association of the club brand), role of sports officials (with 2 components of better holding of league and quality of service delivery) and maintaining the team brand (with 2 components of fans' loyalty to the club and fans' expectations) and the sponsor brand experience has 12 components in the 4 dimensions of the introducing the sponsor brand (with 2 components of conceptualization of the sponsor brand and cultivation of brand support), organization of sponsor brand (with 3 components of development of sponsorship programs, development of sponsor communication and matching of the sponsor and the target community), promotion of the sponsor brand (with 5 components of specialized marketing, advertising of the sponsor brand, role of social media, efficiency of information technology and the development of revenue generation and market share) and institutionalization of the sponsor brand (with 2 components of creating satisfaction and loyalty and creating brand value). The factor load of all questions was higher than 0.40, the average variance extracted of all dimensions was higher than 0.40, and the Cronbach and combined reliability of all dimensions was higher than 0.80. In addition, the results of structural equation modeling showed that the developed model of the causal factors of team brand experience and sponsor brand experience had a good fit, and both variables of team brand experience and sponsor brand experience had a direct and significant effect on the overall model and its related components (P<0.05).

The developed model of the causal factors of team brand experience and sponsor brand experience of the present research can be used for experts and planners in the field of sports, and by using its dimensions and components can be used to create a competitive advantage.