The main goal of this research is to model the effect of innovative marketing and entrepreneurial leadership on the sustainable development of businesses in Iran's sports industry.

Methods: The statistical population of the current research includes activists, experts in the field of sports business and sports marketing active in the country's sports industry, which are 250 people. Since the statistical population was limited, the same number was considered as a statistical sample. The research tools include innovative marketing gupta et al (2016), entrepreneurial leadership questionnaire bagri and harrison (2020) and Aghaei Sustainable Development Questionnaire (2020). These questionnaires were distributed and collected both electronically and manually, and ultimately, 239 questionnaires underwent statistical analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the research data. In the inferential statistics section, Spss24 software and structural equation modeling methods and SmartPLS4 software were used to estimate the model.

Results: Innovative marketing and entrepreneurial leadership have effects on the sustainable development of businesses in Iran's sports industry. The research model demonstrates a good fit. The Sobel statistic value of 7.70 exceeds the z-value of 1.96 at the 0.05 significance level. In fact, entrepreneurial leadership significantly mediates the relationship between innovative marketing and the sustainable development of sports businesses.

Conclusion: The sustainable development of sports businesses is grounded in innovative marketing, while entrepreneurial leadership—by establishing a supportive framework—facilitates and solidifies the foundation for innovation and sustainable growth within the sector.