The Mediating Role of Brand Equity in the Relationship between Experiential Marketing and the Behavioral Intentions of the Spectators of Iran’s Professional Football league

Spectators are an important part of sports events. With this knowledge, marketers have always attempted to recognize their demands, requests, and behavioral intentions to clarify the reason and quality of spectators’ behaviors during their presence in sports events. The aim of the present research was to examine the impact of experiential marketing on the behavioral intentions of the spectators of the Iranian professional football league through the satisfaction of the event. The methodology of the study was a descriptive correlative type, which was implemented in the field. The statistical population of the research was the spectators of the teams present in the seventeenth Iranian football premier league (2017-2018). Among sixteen clubs present in the premier league, eight clubs were selected based on geographical zoning (stratified sampling method) and questionnaires were distributed among them (917 people) and then collected. To collect data, questionnaires of Experiential Marketing by Tasser, Chiaw, and Wang (2007), the Brand Equity by Acer (2009), and the Behavioral Intentions by Theodrakis et al. (2013) were used. In order to confirm the validity of the tools for measuring the components related to the main variables of the research in the studied society, content validity and structure of the confirmatory factor analysis approach were used. And to verify the reliability of the tools, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used, the values ​​of which are 0.89, 0.76, and 0.91 for the questionnaires of experiential marketing, brand equity, and behavioral intentions, respectively. Data analysis was done using the structural equation model (Smart PLS software) at the significance level of P < 0.05. The results revealed that experiential marketing has a positive and significant effect on brand equity (0.63) and behavioral intentions (0.20). Brand equity played the role of mediating variable in the relationship between experiential marketing and behavioral intentions, and finally, the research model was confirmed. According to the results of the research, it can be stated that part of spectators’ behavioral intentions can be justified through experiential marketing and brand equity. Therefore, it is suggested that the authorities provide the necessary grounds for increasing these variables. To achieve this goal, sports clubs should try to improve their interaction with sports spectators.