Journal of New Studies in Sport Management
Volume:3 Issue: 3, Summer 2022

This study aimed to examine the challenges and opportunities of sports stakeholders in social media use. This study uses thematic analysis to analyze the literature on the research topic. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of sports stakeholders, including players (N=15), teams managers (N=14), and fans (N=26) that were chosen from three professional football teams. The phenomenological method was used to explore the research questions. The study addressed seven categories of sport stakeholders' challenges and opportunities in social media: informing sports stakeholders, sharing information, advertising, shopping, dialogue, and facilitation of communication, which are offering opportunities. Moreover, two challenges, including unpleasant feelings and time consumption, are recognized as dilemmas. The findings showed common challenges and opportunities of all three sports stakeholders in using social media.

The purpose of this study was to identify effective drivers in the future of sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province. The participants included experts in management, marketing and sports businesses. The interviews were conducted by snowball method and continued until the theoretical consensus, and finally after 18 interviews we reached the theoretical consensus. For statistical analysis SPSS software and Mick Mac software were used. The results of cross-impact analysis based on MDI and MII matrices showed that supportive drivers, marketing drivers, as well as drivers of creativity and innovation play an important role in improving system relationships. In addition, the three groups of propellants having the highest and the least impact included economic divers, (educational divers) and customer-oriented divers respectively. On the other hand, propellants such as; Cultural drivers, communication drivers, and managerial drivers are more influenced than being influential. Finally, it was the propulsion of manpower that lacks a key and important role in the formation of sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province, but they should not be forgotten completely. It is suggested that in order to develop more sports businesses in Khorasan Razavi province, these items should be on the agenda to achieve a bright future in sports in the province.

The outbreak of war in Ukraine at the same time as the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics once again called the world sports to engage in international military warfare. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of sports deterrent in the prevention of international military wars. The present study was a qualitative-netnogeraphy method, which was conducted by studying various websites and social networks such as Instagram and official websites of BBC sport, CNN sport, ABC sport, Varzesh TV, Olympics and FIFA World Cup pages. The results indicated that sport sanctions of Russia categorized to personal (8) and organizational (21) concepts. Although Sports is a non-political phenomenon, it can play as a peace-making factor to decrease the political and military pressure on nations. Today, athletes, because of their billion audience on social media and messengers, have an irreplaceable impact on the public, including efforts to curb violence, aggression and incitement to war, including effective sports in promoting international peace.

The main purpose of the present study was to determine the factors affecting the establishment of sports knowledge-based companies based on electronic knowledge. To pursue this aim, Glaser's grounded theory was used as the qualitative research method. 16 in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted with academic and industry experts in the field of sports using purposeful and snowball sampling methods. Data analysis was performed in three stages: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, and the preliminary list of factors was identified through initial library studies. The 105 values affecting the development of sports knowledge-based companies based on electronic knowledge were extracted through the open coding process. The final pattern was created using the results of axial coding, which revealed the identification of 12 subcategories, falling into two main categories: intra-organization (human resources, management, marketing, legal, and financial factors) and extra-organization (educational/creativity and innovation factors, economic, cultural-social, infrastructure, legal, policy-making, and support/protection). According to the findings of the study, the professional and comprehensive view of managers and scientific and executive officials on these mentioned factors can change the ecosystem of sports entrepreneurship in Iran, providing the necessary context and infrastructure, as well as the sports community's interest in entrepreneurship and the formation of knowledge-based companies. This is, of course, accompanied by long-term job opportunities for activists in this sector as well as the development of new and inventive ideas, goods, and services.

Sports are generally competitive and stressful. Competitive sport anxiety in athletes affects sports self-efficacy. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of competitive anxiety and mindfulness with sports self-efficacy of male athletes mediated by family cohesion. The statistical population of this descriptive-correlational study covered all male athletes in Masjed Soleyman, Iran in 2021, and a sample of 258 athletes was selected using convenience sampling. The research tools included the Sports Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, Competitive Sports Anxiety Questionnaire, the Mindfulness Inventory for Sport, and the Family Cohesion Questionnaire. The proposed model was evaluated using path analysis, and indirect correlations were tested with bootstrapping. The results suggested that all direct paths to sport self-efficacy were significant except athletic mindfulness (p<0.01), and indirect paths to sports self-efficacy became significant through family cohesion (p<0.01). According to the results of this study, the proposed model had good fitness and was a major step toward recognizing the factors affecting sports self-efficacy in male athletes as it can be helpful in designing effective plans to reduce males' experienced tension and improve their sports self-efficacy.

This study aimed to the effect of sports managers' literacy on the performance of football clubs in Iranian leagues. The method of this research was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population consisted of all managers of football clubs in Iranian leagues.  267 questionnaires were  distributed among managers as the research sample.The research instruments included a questionnaire on sports managers' literacy (semi-researcher-made) and the performance of sports clubs (Shafiee et al., 2013). The tool's validity was confirmed using the opinion of experts. Smart PLS 3 software was used to analyze the data and the relationships between the variables. Findings showed that respectively, media literacy (Path coefficient: 0.88; T-Value: 7.65); Technology Literacy (Path coefficient: 0.78; T-Value: 5.87); Legal Literacy (Path coefficient: 0.76; T-Value: 5.19); Managerial literacy (Path coefficient: 0.67; T-Value: 3.50), and financial literacy (Path coefficient: 0.62; T-Value: 2.53) had significant effects on the performance of football clubs. Based on the findings, it was found that sports managers should use a variety of literacy in different areas of decision-making and face different problems to provide the ground for better success and performance of the club.