Designing a model of participation in recreational sports with a social marketing approach

The purpose of the present study was to design a model of participation in recreational sports with a social marketing approach. The population of the study is consisted of the entire public sports boards and the sports organizations of municipalities of capital of provinces. Sampling was done through the application of the Morgan table and according to the numerousness of the participants of sports boards and the aforementioned sports organizations of municipalities,a number of 385 individuals have been selected as the sample of study. Data collection instruments included researcher made questionnaires whose reliability and validity have been approved by the help of professors and various statistical tests.The questionnaires were distributed among the participants through social networks, in person meeting and e-mailing.Results manifested that the impact factors of the entire components relating to social marketing are significantly high and among them, the component of communications of social marketing had the strongest impact factor (0.948) while participation cost (0.953)and accessibility (0.921) have occupied later priorities.In addition in our model the impact factor between participation and marketing was calculated as 0.892 while in relation to management and participation in sports, the obtained values are respectively 0.584 and 0.597.These values show the significant importance of participation culture.In this sense, culture is a basic category for the rest of categories state in the model.Another category which was considered as an important one in the views of respondents for improving public participation through social marketing was a solid and strong management in this context.