The present study aimed to examine the impact of social media marketing on the purchase intentions of football fans, with a mediating role of consumer brand engagement, among fans of Al-Zawraa and Al-Jawiya football clubs in Iraq. The research was descriptive–survey in nature and applied in terms of purpose. The statistical population included all fans of Al-Zawraa and Al-Jawiya who followed the official pages of these clubs on Instagram. The sampling was non-probabilistic and based on convenience, including only individuals who (1) were fans of either Al-Zawraa or Al-Jawiya, and (2) were active Instagram users following their club’s official page. Due to the unknown exact size of the population, Cochran’s formula was used to determine the sample size, resulting in 365 participants. Data were collected using standardized questionnaires, including the Social Media Marketing Questionnaire by Chung et al., the Purchase Intention Questionnaire by Han and Kim, and the Consumer Brand Engagement Questionnaire by Kaur et al. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (skewness, kurtosis, and structural equation modeling) with SPSS version 25 and Smart PLS version 3. The results indicated that social media marketing has a positive and significant effect on football fans’ purchase intentions. Additionally, the findings revealed that consumer brand engagement plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between social media marketing and fans’ purchase intentions.