Designing the Behavioral Model of Iran Professional Athletes with a Social Marketing Approach

The aim of this study was to develop the behavioral model of professional athletes in Iran with a social marketing approach. The study was applied in terms of aims, mixed and of exploratory sequential type in terms of data collection. Data were collected by semi-structured open interviews with 23 professional athletes, sport coaches, sport managers, sport psychologists and sociologists in the qualitative phase. Data were analyzed in qualitative phase by coding method in three stages: open, pivotal and selective. The findings included 80 codes in open coding. In the pivotal coding step, they were classified in 6 concepts: product, price, location, promotion, policy and participation. In the selective coding stage, a behavioral pattern of professional athletes in Iran was developed with a social marketing approach. In the quantitative phase of the study, a researcher-made questionnaire was used based on the qualitative results. The sampling in qualitative phase was purposive using snowball method. The sampling in quantitative phase was random and classified. In the quantitative phase, the structural equation modeling was used with Smart PLS 3.00 software to evaluate the behavioral model of professional athletes in Iran. According to the results of t test, all factor loads were significant at 99% of confidence level and played a significant role in developing the behavioral model of professional athletes in Iran.