Sport and Collective Identity; Case Study of Karaj City

Professional sports because of their wide audiences create different reactions and have great impacts on different layers of society. The main question of this research is how sports and athletes can affect collective identity of people of a country or city. Method of this research is interviews with focus group. Interviews done in seven groups and in each group six people were selected as sample in a targeted and non-random way and on the basis of age, gender and their familiarity with Traditional and modern sports. In total, 42 people (24 men and 18 women) were interviewed. Then For interpretation of key Sentences of Interviews, we first used open coding, then axial coding, and selective coding. Findings of this research show that Professional sport is one of the main factors that affect collective identity. This research also shows that success in sports (in national and international levels) can consolidate collective identity of residents of Karaj city.