Athlete brand image: Scale development and model test

Sports fans and the audience interest in sports and sports consumption behavior is influenced by the image of athletes who are the main elements of the sport.It can be said that sports consumers (whether or not they are supporters) have a particular interest in star players who are appreciated by people who are interested in sports, who are attracted to the physical appearance, create positive perceptions in society.For this reason, the determination of the athlete's brand image can provide managerial and strategic information in the process of marketing of that sport branch as well as the related athletes. The aim of this thesis is to make reliability and validity work by adapting the athlete brand image scale to Turkish. In addition, it is thought that the scale to be adapted to Turkey and so it can be used in other studies as there has not been a recent study in Turkey on the image scale of Athlete brand. Arai et al. (2013) developed by Athlete Brand Image Scale (ABI) was used.Athlete brand image scale consists of three dimensions, ten subdimensions and thirty items. These dimensions are athlete performance, attractive appearance and marketable lifestyle. Athlete performance consists of four subdimensions: athlete expertise, competition style, sportsmanship and rivalry. Attractive appearance consist of physical attractiveness, symbol, and body fitness. Marketable lifestyle consists of life story, role model and relationship effort. The population of the study is composed of students studing at the School of Physical Education and Sports in the Aegean region and the Faculty of Sports Sciences. The sample of this study consists of students of Adnan Menderes University, Dokuz Eylül University, Manisa Celal Bayar University and Pamukkale University, which are selected with the convenience sampling method. 1027 students participated in the research. Internal consistency coefficient and composite reliability calculations were performed in reliability measurements. In order to measure structure validity, explanatory factor analysis (EFA) was performed first and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was made. CFA analysis was performed by using composite reliability (AVE and structure reliability) analysis for reliability measurement. As a result of there search, it was determined that the Turkish form of the athlete brand image scale is a reliable and valid scale. Athlete Brand Image Scale consists of 6 subdimensions and 30 items. Keywords: Athlete , Brand, Image, Reliability, Validity