hamed jafari; jafar barghi moghaddam; mahdi bashiri; mohammadrahim najafzadeh
Abstract
The present study aimed to explain the role of media in developing professional athletes’ personal brands. This research employed an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, done in two qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative stage, a purposive sampling method was used for in-depth ...
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The present study aimed to explain the role of media in developing professional athletes’ personal brands. This research employed an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, done in two qualitative and quantitative stages. In the qualitative stage, a purposive sampling method was used for in-depth interviews; 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with media professionals and sports marketers, professional athletes, and sports fans. The data were coded based on the thematic analysis. Two experts confirmed the coding validity by reviewing and controlling the accuracy of the extracted codes and re-coding the interviews. In the quantitative stage, 384 experts in media and sports marketing, professional athletes, and sports fans were selected as participants by stratified random method. To collect data, a researcher-made questionnaire was employed. Face and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts (10 people), with convergent validity via the extracted mean-variance (above 0.5), and divergent validity using the Fornell-Larker matrix. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were greater than 0.7. To test the hypotheses, Smart PLS 3 was employed. The qualitative section results show that the three main themes of illustration and creating a social base, advertising, validation, interaction, and communication, along with nine corresponding categories in media function in developing the personal brand of professional athletes were extracted and explained. The results also showed that the proposed model has a good fit and in analyzing the relationship between the main factors, media function (0.807) has a direct positive and significant effect on the development of the athletes’ personal brand and 0.8% explains its changes. Therefore, it seems that the media with different functions can provide an effective role in developing the personal brand of athletes and the loyalty of their fans.