Can Market Knowledge Lead to the Formation of Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Commercialization in Sports Startups?

Sports startups are entering the knowledge-based economy, where knowledge and intangible assets are recognized as the most important factor in production as well as the most important competitive advantage. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to examine whether market knowledge can lead to the formation of entrepreneurial opportunities and commercialization in sports startups. The statistical population of the study consisted of 100 technology-based entrepreneurs of sports startups in IRAN. The research tool for this paper was a questionnaire containing 40 questions using a 5-point Likert scale. The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by factor analysis and AMOS 23 and SPSS software were used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest a significant impact of market knowledge (T=4.58, β = 0.45, p < 0.01) and each of its dimensions, namely Identifying the right market, Awareness of supply and demand trends, and Market technology on the entrepreneurial opportunity formation in sports startups. According to the results of the research, we can state the positive impact of the market knowledge on the level of entrepreneurial opportunities of sports startups. It was concluded that market knowledge based on the commercialization of sports science research is a potential source of value creation and competitive advantage for the startups that ultimately develop such enterprises and help improve the technology-driven entrepreneurship status of these enterprises and job creation in sport scope.