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The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of purchase intentions for utilitarian and hedonic counterfeit sporting goods among Muslim’ consumers. The moderating effect of income and status consumption was also examined.

Questionnaires were distributed among male undergraduate university students who were consumers of sports goods. A total of 360 valid and usable questionnaires were collected and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics.

The results showed that perceived risk, personal gratification, religiosity, information susceptibility and normative susceptibility all have a positive and significant effect on negative attitudes toward counterfeit sports goods. The effect of a negative attitude toward counterfeit goods was also negative and significant for the intention to purchase utilitarian and hedonistic goods. Income was not a moderator in the relationship between negative attitudes and the intention to purchase utilitarian and hedonic goods. However, the moderating effect of status consumption on the intention to purchase both utilitarian and hedonic goods was significant.

The use of a male-only student sample potentially limits the generalization of the findings, but not the underlying relationships between the variables. Efforts to discourage or prevent the purchase of counterfeit sporting goods should highlight the risk and reduced personal gratification associated with purchasing counterfeit products, while also appealing to a person’s faith-based ethics.

This study produces a novel model explaining the purchase intentions for utilitarian and hedonic counterfeit sporting goods. This model can inform the development of anti-counterfeiting strategies in Muslim countries.

This study aims to investigate drivers of co-branding, and the relative strength of these drivers within the Persian Gulf Pro League (PGPL). The study examines sport sponsorship, and specifically the relationship between professional football teams and on-field apparel sponsors.

Sixteen experts participated in semi-structured interviews and ranked the co-branding drivers. The expert opinions were organized into estimates and triangular fuzzy numbers were established before the Mamdani Fuzzy Inference System converted the fuzzy outputs into crisp output values using the Centroid method. Next, the rankings of the drivers by the same 16 participants were analyzed using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP).

The study identified four main factors with 19 indicators: brand management (i.e. enhancing brand value, utilizing the knowledge and experience of partner brands, brand position, brand identity, brand equity and brand image), partner relationships (i.e. satisfaction, mutual trust, commitment, common interest, product reliability and innovative strategies), marketing factors (i.e. marketing mix, market position, competitive advantage and entry into new domestic markets) and supporting factors (i.e. copyright, contracts and social media law). The AHP identified the most influential factors as marketing, partner relationships, brand management and support.

Based on the study’s findings, the authors recommend that PGPL teams adopt a partnership mindset, seek alignment of values and recognize the plurality of stakeholders to a sponsorship and their relationships to each other. The study highlights the challenges of co-branding activities in a developing country where trademark laws are not well developed.

The purpose of the study was to compare young adult responses to rational and emotional sports product advertisements. The moderating roles of product type and gender were also examined.

The study utilized a 2 (advertising appeal: emotional vs rational) ×2 (gender: male vs female)×2 (sport product type: utilitarian vs hedonic) research design. Data were collected from 160 sport product users. The collected data were analyzed using three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The results indicated that emotional advertising has a greater impact on the attitude toward advertising and the intention to purchase sports products. The results also revealed that rational advertising appeals have more impact for utilitarian sports products and that emotional advertising appeals are more effective for hedonic sports products. However, there were no significant effects for gender as a moderating variable.

This is the first study to examine responses to rational and emotional appeals in sports product advertisements.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the interaction effect that sponsor-team congruence and team fan (home/rival team) have on the influence of different types of sports sponsorship (joint, corporate social responsibility [CSR]-linked and conventional sponsorship) on fans' attitudes and purchase intentions toward the sponsor.

Two experimental studies were conducted on 391 and 297 participants. The data gathered underwent analysis through five multivariate general linear model analyses.

The study found that CSR-linked sponsorship had the strongest positive impact and the weakest negative impact on the attitude and purchase intention of home team supporters and the attitude of rival team supporters. Nonetheless, the sponsor-team congruence did not significantly moderate the relationship. Additionally, the research demonstrated that the fan identity of both home and rival teams moderates the impact of sports sponsorships on attitude and purchase intention.

Previous research has studied the effectiveness of sponsorship format types independently. This is the first research comparing sponsorship formats regarding fan type and congruence.

Athlete brand image management has become a popular topic among sport marketing scholars. This study aims to test the impacts of the attributes of an athlete brand image on fan loyalty.

In total, 500 questionnaires were delivered to university students and 472 completed questionnaires were returned. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the psychometric properties of the measures and structural equation modeling was carried out to test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study show that three attributes of athlete brand image (e.g. marketable lifestyle, athletic performance and attractive appearance) positively influenced fan loyalty.

To increase the loyalty of fans, effective marketing strategies could be designed to create positive images of athletes with both athletes’ on-field (e.g. athletic skills, competition style and excellence in sport) and off-field performance (e.g. engagement with fans, community involvement, public relation and charity activities).

This paper provides valuable insights into the measurement of athlete brand image and fan loyalty and offers a foundation for future research on athlete brand management.

Currently, attention to customer experience management is one of the most important management approaches in the business field. Focussing on improving customer experience and having a customer experience management strategy is one of the actions that service providers can take to improve their marketing performance by providing superior experiences to customers. The nature of customer experience is very important for the retail industry, especially for sportswear stores, because sports products are mostly experience-oriented and can be classified as a general experience. Despite the importance of consumption experience in consumer behaviour studies, the design of sports customer experiences has received less attention from researchers. Therefore, this chapter seeks to answer the question of what aspects of creating and developing customer experience in sportswear retail stores are. To answer this question, this chapter attempts to identify the areas of creating customer experiences in sports stores by using the views of sports marketing experts through qualitative research and using content analysis techniques. The findings indicate that sports stores try to provide the best experience for their customers by considering six aspects of human resources and employees, products, interior design, exterior space, technology and interaction and communication in their strategic marketing plans and investing in creating and developing these aspects. They create a distinct experience for customers and provide a basis for purchasing, satisfaction, loyalty and other positive marketing consequences for customers.

Although the needs and desires of customers are different, obtaining positive and negative experiences is an inevitable consequence of consuming products and services purchased by the consumer. The nature of these experiences is very important for the retail industry and in particular sports stores, as the intangible experience includes the main essence of the products and services provided by businesses; in other words, sports products are mostly experience-oriented and can be classified as an overall experience. Despite the importance of the consumer experience as a dominant and effective paradigm in consumer behaviour, the design of sports customer experience has received less attention from researchers. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer the question of what aspects of creating and developing the customer experience in sports and recreational complexes are. To answer this question, this chapter attempts to identify the areas of creating customer experiences in sports and recreational environments by examining the case of the Enghelab sports and recreational club (in Tehran, Iran) using qualitative research methods and interviewing experts in this field and using the content analysis technique. The findings indicate that cognitive, functional, comprehensive, human, physical, functional, aesthetic, sensory, social, emotional and communal components are the most important components of creating and enhancing customer experience in sports and entertainment complexes.

Therefore, the owners, managers and marketing unit of these collections should invest in the creation and development of these components in the design of their strategic marketing plans in order to provide a memorable experience for the customer during their journey and finally be able to benefit from the subsequent positive consequences such as customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth advertising, loyalty and return intention.