Media and personal brand development: A study on professional athletes

The purpose of this study was to explain the role of media in developing the personal brand of professional athletes. This research was of mixed method which was done in two stages of qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative section, 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 statistical population of this research consisted of all sports media and marketing specialists, professional athletes and sports fans in which 384 people were selected by stratified random sampling method. In order to collect data, a researcher-made questionnaire. To test the hypotheses, Smart PLS software version 3 was used. Based on the results of the qualitative section, the three main themes of illustration and creating a social base, advertising and validation, interaction and communication, along with nine corresponding categories in the field of 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 personal brand of athletes 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.