Athletes Branding: Identifying and Investigating Athletes Brand Image from the Fan's Viewpoint (Case Study: Ali Daei Brand)

In this paper, the principles of athletes brand management and athletes brand image structure are presented conceptually and empirically. The conceptual model of athlete brand image (MABI) is classified into three categories including: athletic performance, appearance attractiveness, and lifestyle. These dimensions include personality characteristics, attractive appearance out of the playground and other trends. This research has provided a new model through reviewing the existing literature on branding and athletes and actors brand management, which could be helpful regarding the issues related to athletes brand. This model was introduced by Arai et al. (2014). Since Ali Daei is a famous international character in the field of sporting, the questionnaires’ questions have been designed about him. In this research, the questionnaire reliability was analyzed using SPSS software and the model and hypotheses were studied and analyzed using LISREL software. The results showed that athletic performance, appearance attractiveness and lifestyle have a positive impact on the brand image of Ali Daei.