Identifying the antecedents affecting the behavioral intentions of fans of Iran Premier League based on cognitive theory

This research is based on cognitive theory with the aim of identifying the antecedents affecting the behavioral intentions of fans of Iran's premier football leagueThe statistical population of the research was all the fans of football clubs in the Premier League of Iran. The sample size was obtained using Cochran's formula including 384 people and finally 410 questionnaires were statistically analyzed. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: the first part was conducted with the aim of investigating the demographic characteristics of football fans such as age, gender and education level. The second part focused on fans' evaluation of skill performance, environment, and congeniality, passion of other consumers, consumer-to-consumer interaction, and behavioral intentions. To measure the research variables, Ko et al. skill performance questionnaire (2011) with three questions, Fu et al.'s Self-congruence questionnaire (2017) with four items, Ku et al. Ambience questionnaire (2011) with three items, Other consumers’ passion Chen and colleagues (2013) with three items, Consumer to consumer Interaction Kim et al. (2018) with three items and Jang and Namkung (2009) behavioral intentions with three items were used. The final model of the research using partial least squares technique and SmartP software. L. S was validated. The results of the hypothesis test showed that environmental factors, skill factors, interaction with other fans, enthusiasm of other fans and homophobia had the greatest effect on fans' behavioral intentions, respectively. Therefore, knowledge of the mentioned factors provides necessary conditions for managers and organizers of sports competitions for better management of fans.