Journal of Research in Sport Management and Marketing
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Winter 2024

This study aimed to investigate the effect of the environmental and spatial aspects of healthy pedestrian paths on the tendency of people to participate in physical activity in the city of Ardabil, Iran. This research possesses an applied purpose and contains descriptive and field research methodology. The statistical population of this study was formed by a large number of people who used the health walkways of Ardabil for exercise and recreation. In this research, 545 people completed the questionnaire and according to Morgan's table, 384 people were randomly selected as the statistical sample of this research. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistical methods were used for appropriate evaluation and analysis, which were derived from the tables, frequencies, percentages, averages, and standard deviations. In addition, the median distribution was used to determine the normality of the data, the one-sample t-test was used to test the research hypotheses, and multiple regression was used for intragroup correlation. To check and analyze the obtained information, SPSS 26 was used, with a significance level of P≤0.05. The findings of the current study showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the average environmental and spatial dimensions of the Health Sidewalks in Ardabil on the tendency of people to participate in physical activity (P≤0.001). The results of the present research showed that the aesthetic elements under the influence of different components significantly increased the tendency of citizens toward physical activity.

Coaching is not necessarily among the world’s most demanding jobs; however, this doesn't mean that anybody can be suitable to take the position without enjoying special skill, ability, knowledge, insight and merit. The aim of this research is to identify the factors influential in the selection of the national basketball team coaches. This research is qualitative in nature and the method used for its conduction is based on a GT with a systematic approach. The participants (n=28) in this study represented basketball experts, who were selected on purposive sampling with whom to reach saturation of data. The instrument for collection of data was the semi-structured interview The open, axial, and selective coding were used to analyze the data. To ensure that this research is discriminating, the researchers used the indices of credibility, transferability, trustworthiness, and confirmability. This research showed 643 initial concepts, 142 secondary concepts, and 20 sub-categories, classified into the causative, contextual, intervening conditions, strategies and consequences. Reflecting on results of this research, it can be inferred that optimal use of workforce resources in the basketball sports, especially using the coaches, won't be possible in our endeavors to meet the goals without observing the exigencies of their selection. Therefore, the officials in charge of selecting national basketball team coaches are suggested to consider the factors identified in this research and put them on their agenda as the criteria for their selection. On the other hand, executive bodies also should observe and set forth several factors to address the goal.

Trying on clothes in sportswear stores is a very time-consuming and tiring task. Virtual fitting rooms provides conditions where online consumers can try on the clothes they want before shopping. This technology has recently received much attention due to its commercial potential. However, this technology has not arrived to Iran yet, and it is obscure if the Iranian consumers accept it. In this research, the researcher is trying to investigate the factors affecting the acceptance of this technology by online sports consumers. This is an applied research. The mixed method was used, in which the Delphi technique was employed between experts of sportswear industry in the qualitative phase. In the quantitative phase, online consumers of sports products were selected as a sample. The snowball method was used to collect the subjects. Finally, 420 questionnaires were collected. The validity of the instrument was confirmed through the opinions of university professors and convergent validity. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were used to check the reliability. SPSS26 and Amos24 software were used for data analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses and evaluate the overall fit. The results showed the positive effect of all the factors including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, pleasure, arousal and dominance on the adoption of virtual fitting room by online sport consumers. The results of this research have practical implications for sports managers and retailers in relation to adopting the best management and marketing strategies to use virtual fitting rooms.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the scientific community has assessed and addressed the application of artificial intelligence in the sports industry and to identify dominant academic themes and neglected topics.

A total of 2023 articles and 13081 keywords were analyzed for co-occurrence analysis. The analysis aimed to identify the dominant academic themes that scholars tackle and the topics that are neglected.

The analysis identified seven core topics, including real-time sport medicine, wearable technology, swarm intelligence, automatic motion detection and deep image analysis, intelligent athlete training and education, and athlete robots. The study also revealed the necessity for increased scholarly focus on subjects like precision sports medicine and metaverse technology.

The revolutionary technology of artificial intelligence has impacted all industries, including the sports sector. The analysis demonstrates how AI has revolutionized the sports sector and what areas require further attention. Policy makers and the scientific community can utilize this study as a practical guide to better grasp the impact of AI on the sports industry.

Today, there are sizable chunk of cities in the world, trying to introduce themselves as destination brands in various areas. Given that, this study aimed to explain the effective factors on destination branding in the field of sports tourism in Mashhad. This study was of applied research, from the view point of purpose, and also, in terms of its nature, it was in the field of exploratory research, furthermore, in terms of data collection, it was of a descriptive-survey type. Also, due to the use of Q methodology, it was a type of mixed research (quantitative-qualitative). The statistical population included marketing and branding specialists, sports tourism experts, sports management professors and people active in the field of tourism who had complete knowledge of Mashhad. For this purpose, theoretical saturation was achieved after in-depth and semi-structured interviewing 16 experts selected purposefully and finally 26 people completed the Q questionnaire. The data obtained from sorting the Q statements were entered into SPSS software version 26 and analyzed through varimax rotation (exploratory factor analysis). The priority of these models were infrastructural factors, inner city situation, cultural activities, commercial creativities, urban essence, and transportation, respectively. The results of this research emphasize the strengthening of indicators such as suitable access to the Internet, managerial decisions, cultural diversity, the existence of suitable places and markets, the potential of the region and the smoothness of traffic and roads in order to make the destination as a brand in Mashhad's sports tourism.

Today sport tourism is one of the largest industry, which have been known as one of the most amazing modern service industries. The present study is a survey in terms of purpose and the method of data collection is field type. Delphi technique was used to prepare the questionnaire, therefore, the researcher-made questionnaire was based on the dimensions of sports tourism. In this study, descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used to analyze the statistical information of the findings in two separate sections. In the statistical description of the subjects through statistical characteristics such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation according to the preparation of the questionnaire was used and in the inferential part of the confirmatory factor analysis method (CFA) to identify important factors in sports tourism. Moreover, to examine the interactive effect of population characteristics OV Cognitive multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA was used. For the means of establishing the relationship between dependent and independent variables and models Amos was used to measure the fit of the model and to design the model and examine the main purpose of modeling. As well, structural equations (SEM) were used to create a basis for comparing the opinions of experts with sports tourists. As a result, it can be said that any economic activity in the tourism industry, destinations must have a thorough knowledge of the market they face and the audience and products and has analyzed its tourism market.