The Role of Ambush Marketing, Negative Behavior and congruence in Intention to Purchase from Iran Football Pro-League Sponsors

This research aimed at investigating the Moderating role of ambush marketing, negative behavior and congruence in the relationship between sport (Iran Football pro-league) involvement and intention to purchase. The research used a descriptive-correlation method conducted as a field. The sample consisted of 515 pro-league spectators. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by 14 professors and through confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha (over 0.7 for the whole questionnaire and all subscales). ANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The results showed a significant difference in intention to purchase from sponsors with regard to different levels of sport involvement (F=1.8, P=0.001). Also, the Moderating role of negative behavior (F=14.6, P=0.001) and congruence (F=100.2, P=0.001) in purchase intention was significant while the moderating role of ambush marketing (F=0.34, P=0.0556) was not significant. Generally, there was a relationship between the pro-league involvement and the intention to purchase sponsor's products and player's negative behaviors and the congruence between sponsors and pro-league moderated this relationship.