Sports Business Journal
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2021

Before and at the beginning of the Iranian Football Premier League in the 1980s, sports managers and presenters used marketing techniques in practice. However, the study and research in business in sports has officially started in sports sciences since 2005. Professors and sports management students have welcomed did their thesis and dissertations on various topics of sports business. Specialist professors and colleagues in the sports business have also compiled and translated valuable scientific books on it. During the last 15 years, this field's quantitative and qualitative growth has progressed so that today, most universities in the country in sports marketing management have established MSc and Ph.D. courses. After the quantitative growth, the importance of qualitative development in a managerial, research, and executive field is the provision of specialized scientific, research, and executive infrastructure. There are administrative and infrastructural deficiencies in sport. Consequently, semi-professional and professional sports have not met the growth opportunities. The marketing specialists are stuck in a vicious cycle due to the Iranian sports market's lack of growth and development. In other words, with insufficient growth of infrastructure, it is not possible to grow the market and professional sports. Therefore, the lack of market development and professional sports makes it impossible to develop infrastructure and increase specialists' skills, experience, and human resources. Meanwhile, specialists in universities and research institutes are engaged in their educational and research work, and managers and experts in the field of executives in sports are managing the Iranian sports market in their way. However, both groups agree that the capacity of the Iranian sports market in an 80 million people society is more than this. So far, the possibility of optimal growth of employment potentials, income generation, and socio-cultural potential has not been provided. One of the missing links in this vicious cycle is the scientific journals of sports marketing. Although they have sincerely published the scientific articles of the researchers in marketing during these 15 years, they sometimes eliminated the valuable and high-level articles in this field. Because the lack of editors' professionals of the mentioned publications stopped the processing list, and their files have been closed. However, some were eventually published, and some have never had the opportunity to be published. Perhaps for some reason, we could understand the editors' decisions. Because sometimes, the placement of marketing studies and research in the scope of current publications was less understandable, and it was necessary to do as soon as possible to publish specialized journals in this field. By changing the regulations of scientific journals, it became possible to obtain a license and provide facilities for publishing the Sports Business Journal. Its publication would not have been possible without the professional, infrastructural, technical, and financial support of Alzahra University and its esteemed editorial board members. Therefore, while thanking all those involved and colleagues and respected authors for submitting their valuable articles, it is hoped that colleagues in submitting their manuscripts and esteemed judges in guiding the dear writers and researchers as much as possible, the journal in the way that is helpful. May it be a valuable asset in the growth of the sports business in Iran and precious heritage for the future.

This review was purposed to systematically explore how host communities have been affected by the sports mega-events. This systematic review identified the related literature strengths and weaknesses, identified the existing gaps in this regard, and provided the following researchers with new state-of-the-art strategies and implications.

The Web of Science databases, Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed have been thoroughly explored. Moreover, a manual search has been carried out in the most relevant references and documents to ensure sufficiency. Indeed, data surveys and extraction were conducted based on a predefined protocol, and finally, 40 selected documents have been analyzed.

The results revealed that the effects of sports mega-events on the host communities could be categorized into positive and negative ones. Most studies have explored subjects inferred from the findings, including socio-economic impacts, tourism, heritage, image, media, hygiene, cultural, and environmental effects. However, other affected has implications by prostitution-related, psychological, spatial, commercial, voluntary, financial and recreational issues have been rarely considered.

 This study provides policy-makers and event planners with a complete summary of the studies conducted in the past three decades, which is a valuable and credible source to realize the related decision-making processes. Reviewing the documents revealed points about the effects of holding big events that had previously received less attention.

One of the intangible assets of clubs is the transfer of privileges, including licenses to establish football schools. The researcher aimed to identify and rank the factors affecting the power of the franchise assignment of clubs to develop football schools.

The research was conducted in a mixed-method in two parts. Including quantitative and qualitative. The research sample consisted of 11 experts aware of football and sports industry issues. The research tools included library studies, interviews, and researcher-made questionnaires with six indicators and 33 sub-criteria provided to the research samples. Data analysis was performed by AHP and ANP tests in Supers Decision software version 3.2.

The results in AHP analysis showed that human resources, management, legal, software infrastructure, marketing, and economic indicators were the essential factors in enhancing the franchise power of clubs, respectively. Also, in ANP analysis, while determining the weight of sub-criteria and the relationships between the main criteria, the importance of human resources index, managerial expertise, marketing, software, legal and economic infrastructure were the factors influencing the promotion of club franchise power. Thus, human resources are considered the essential internal resource.

Few studies have been done on franchise rights in sports, specifically football clubs. A few studies have been done on how football schools franchising increases clubs' income. And from a micro and macro perspective, it has addressed the issue of managing the transfer of exploitation rights.

The goal of this study was to investigate the role of social marketing in the development of sports tourism in Tehran Province.

The study is applied in terms of purpose, and it is a descriptive correlational research in which 100 experts in the field of social marketing (professors of marketing), specialists in sports tourism (professors), authorities in sports tourism (professors and researchers of this field), as well as managers and experts of Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization were selected as the sample using available and selective sampling. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire taken from previous studies. The professors confirmed the face and content validity, with reliability confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.99.

Data were analyzed by SPSS21 and LISREL 8 software. The results showed seven components of social marketing. They include technology, government laws and policies, environment, economic status, safety and security in sports venues, use of ads and communication channels, all but the last item have a positive and significant effect on the development of sports tourism.

 The results of this study showed that the investment of tourism organizations in social marketing factors is effective. The present study is one of the few comprehensive studies that have been conducted on credit and infrastructure investments in Iran concerning sports tourism.

 The current research aimed to design and explain the sports Development processes in Iran.

 The qualitative and grounded theory-based methods have been used for the current study. The snowball data sampling method and the semi-structural interviews with 15 knowledgeable elites on the subject was used for data collection. The obtained data were analysed by the grounded theory coding with the structuralist approach introduced by Charmaz (2006). The coding was done in two phases as the primary and concentrated codes. Then, the theoretical coding was used to organize the concentrated codes. The trustworthiness of the obtained data and codes for ensuring them the researcher did authenticity.

 The findings show that the processes required for sports development in Iran include attraction, maintenance (the Process of maintaining community sport participation and the Process of retaining talent), and education. These three processes and their components are interrelated and connected in a systematic approach. The proper designing of the processes and the relationship between their components with the strategy to use each process output as the input of the next one with particular emphasis on the interstitial processes and components is an essential point that must be considered.

Proper design of processes and the relationship between their components using each Process's output as input to the next Process with special emphasis on the Process and intermediate components is a critical point that must be considered. It is in this state that heroism is taken out of the greenhouse mode. Incidentally, with the spread and promotion of sports and physical activity among different sections of society, the possibility of the emergence of sports talents naturally increases, and their growth and excellence path becomes clear. Iran's sports development model is presented with a stakeholder approach, procedures and process.

The feeling of security in public sports stadiums is one of the most critical indicators for the quality of the arena. The use of environmental graphics in stadiums can create a sense of security in the spectators. This study aimed to design a communication model of environmental graphics and a sense of security in Iranian soccer spectators.

An applied method was adopted for this descriptive-explanatory research. The researcher-made questionnaire with five environmental graphics components and six feelings of security was used for data collection. Fifteen experts confirmed the validity of the questionnaire and its overall reliability for environmental graphics and security. The study's statistical population included the spectators of the Iranian Premier League, among whom 384 people were selected in proportion to the size of stadiums.

The results showed a significant relationship between environmental graphics and feeling of security in spectators and that the intensity of this relationship was 0.553 based on R2 criterion, indicating a strong correlation between these two variables. Therefore, in the design, construction and installation of soccer stadiums, it is necessary to instil a sense of security in the spectators present in the stadium and prevent social and cultural anomalies or non-return of spectators to the stadiums using the capacity of graphic, environmental experts.

 This article is valuable and unique because it analyzes the relationship between new variables of Environmental Graphics and Feeling of Security in Spectators.

Innovation is a critical factor in the success of football clubs. The use of innovation in organizations leads to the development of competitive advantage and sustainability. Innovation is the source of competitive advantage in the public and non-profit sectors by improving efficiency and effectiveness. This article aimed to design a framework for developing innovation capability in Iranian Premier League Clubs.

The participants were 16 management and sports management professors. The sampling strategy was purposeful. To analyze the interviews, we used content analysis based on the Grounded Theory. 

We extracted seven elements base on the interviews. They included financial infrastructure resources, transformational leadership, strategic thinking, innovative marketing, human resources capacity, knowledge process, and institutional environment. The results showed that financial infrastructure resources as the tangible resources and institutional factors combined with a kind of transformational leadership and strategic thinking of board members in terms of innovation, innovative marketing, and effective use of knowledge could enable football clubs to innovate.

 The new capabilities of the Premier Football League clubs have been less discussed. In this study, we introduced the financial independence groundes, competitive advantage, value creation through innovation and supportive approaches of clubs in Iran.

Nowadays, exercise plays an essential role as economic activity in the economic development of different communities. In most countries, it is considered a trade and necessary industry. This industry is wide-ranging and has many sectors that can be recognized as an industry.

Researchers in this study using a researcher-made questionnaire with 71 items whose content validity and validity were confirmed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis test in SPSS software version 21, subsections, infrastructures and relationships between them and introduced a model for the Iranian sports industry.

The two-way correlation of these infrastructures shows that other factors can grow and improve it with one weakness. Paying attention to this classification and their relationships creates a helpful platform for managers to make decisions. Based on the findings, managers can plan according to the interrelations of each subdivision.

Researchers have introduced a new classification for the relationship between factors related to the sports industry by presenting a new perspective in this article, thus introducing a new basis for decision-makers in the sports industry.

This research aimed to present a model of factors affecting sports entrepreneurship in Lorestan Province.

The statistical population of this study included all managers and experts affiliated with the General Department of Physical Education and members of sports boards in Lorestan Province (N=275). By referring to the Morgan table, the number of samples was considered to be 191 persons who were selected as categories appropriate to the size of the study population. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire prepared based on research goals and experiences of previous studies after reviewing the theoretical foundations and background of the research by professors, elite and experts of this field, which was used after validation. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was also employed to design the model.

The results showed that structural (pc=0.99), environmental (pc=0.88) and behavioral (pc=0.80) factors exert a direct effect on sports entrepreneurship. Social-cultural and technological (factor loading of 0.93), economic-commercial (factor loading 0.89), and political-legal (factor loading of 0.86) factors are involved in the impact of environmental elements on sports entrepreneurship, respectively. Organizational structure (0.96); monitoring, control and evaluation (0.91); scientific-educational and research (0.89) were the most important structural factors influencing sports entrepreneurship, respectively. Also, personality characters (0.94) and specialized features (0.90) played the most crucial role in behavioral aspects of sports entrepreneurship, respectively. Based on the obtained results, influential factors must be considered and managed comprehensively to expand entrepreneurship in Lorestan Province and remove its obstacles.

This article is valuable and unique because it provides a model for the factors affecting sports entrepreneurship in Lorestan Province.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the trend of sport tourism in Isfahan based on Social, Technology, Economical, Environmental, Political and Values (STEEPV).

For the descriptive-analytic in this study, we used a survey. The statistical population included all faculty members and sport management students, managers of travel agencies, and experts in sport organizations in Isfahan. According to the Cochran formula, the statistical population was 483. But 215 were selected as the sample. After confirming the formal validity of the Check List by ten sports management specialists, reliability was calculated to be 0.89 based on Cronbach's alpha.

The results showed that one of the most important social factors: increasing the share of sport tourism in the leisure time of the people according to their interest in sport tourism; technological: using the capabilities of cyberspace in the development of sport tourism; economical: trying to increase investment in sports tourism; boom Sport: Developing sports tourism to improve the environment; Political: Efforts to improve the status of international societies and values: Use of culture and identity of the city to increase athletic motivation in sport tourism.

 In general, implementing unit management in sport tourism policy is suitable for creating synergy. Ultimately, this synergy leads to the realization of landscape in the tourism field of Isfahan.

This research aimed to test the influential factors that lead to the popularity of sportswear brands like Adidas AG in consumers from the perspective of physical education students.

The methodology utilized in this research was descriptive and based on a survey. The data collection tools used for brand popularity took from Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) questionnaires. The statistical population of the study included 457 students of physical education at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. According to the Cochran formula, 210 samples were chosen by a simple random sampling method. The K-S test, T-test, and SEM were used for the confirmatory factor of data analysis.

The results revealed a significant positive correlation of factors affecting brand popularity. The affection to a brand had a significant impact, while the attitude strength component had the most negligible influential effect on the popularity of a brand. Thus, sportswear apparel manufacturers may plan and apply these components to increase the popularity of their brand. The sportswear industry could improve along with brands increasing their market share in competitive markets through the affection of consumers and implementing other components of brand popularity.

 For the first time, the popularity of a reputable sports brand in the world has been investigated in Iran.

Ensuring customer satisfaction is one of the basic requirements of quality management systems and excellence models, is obtained by comparing before the customer buys the expected performance with the actual perceived performance. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between quantitative and physical evidence and service quality with customer satisfaction of sports facilities in District 5 of Tehran.

The research method is correlational in terms of implementation method. The statistical population includes all those who have used the services of sports facilities in District 5. 395 subjects were selected using cluster sampling as research samples. To collecting data, three questionnaires include quantitative and physical evidence (researcher-made), SERVQUAL (Parasuraman and Zithamel, 1988) and customer satisfaction (Kooshesh, 2014), was used. The validity of which was determined by 12 experts in the field of sports management was confirmed. Also, in a pilot study on 40 subjects using Cronbach's alpha, the reliability of the questionnaires was 0.86, 0.89 and 0.91, respectively.

After the data collection, descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, Pearson correlation, and multistage regression in SPSS software were used. The results showed a significant relationship between physical and quantitative characteristics and service quality with customer satisfaction. Also, there is an important relationship between customer satisfaction and the components of perceived factors, reliability, responsiveness, reliability and empathy. In addition, the variables of physical and quantitative characteristics and quality of services are significant predictors of the variable of customer satisfaction. Finally, suppose the quantitative and physical evidence and the quality of services of health clubs are at a suitable level. In that case, it can lead to customer satisfaction and more customer membership in that sports space.

We showed the correlations between physical evidence, satisfaction, and loyalty in sports centres which were less noticed in previous studies.

This study aims to provide a public image of this process and provide valuable insight into the status and A Review of the Impact of Coronavirus on Sports businesses and help future research cover the research gaps in this field.

This study is a library-type study in the form of a review-descriptive study. The statistical population of this study is all articles related to the impact of Coronavirus on sports and the economy from June to July 2020 that were published in local and foreign journals in the field of management, marketing, and health. But some studies have pointed to its positive effects on exercise.

After reviewing and studying the research, a higher percentage of reviews on the documents showed that the Covid-19 has damaged the sports economy, and it is not clear how long the adverse effects of Coronavirus on socio-economic status will continue. In addition to the difficulties that Coronavirus has brought, it can also get opportunities for sports and community health; Use strategies such as market segmentation, emphasis on virtual activity, and blue ocean strategy, which can turn into a chance for sports managers.

This study introduced the functions of the blue ocean strategy in the sports industry in the Coronavirus context.