Feasibility of Holding Polo Competitions in Tang Chogan in Kazerun, Iran, and Expected Impacts on Host Community

According to the history of Bishabur and tangible evidence, polo was, in all probability, commonly played in the ancient city of Bishabur in the Sassanid Era, and in Tang Chogan in different eras. The present study was conducted to examine the feasibility of holding polo competitions in Tang Chogan, Kazerun, and evaluate its probable impacts on the host communities. This was an applied, analytical, descriptive survey. The data were collected through documentary research, interviews, and questionnaires. The validity was determined based on professors‘ and experts‘ opinions. In order to determine the reliability, the questionnaires were distributed among 37 subjects, and running Cronbach‘s alpha test, a value of 0.81 was yielded. Two hundred and two members of the sample were selected purposively, and the data were analyzed via SPSS24, Amos24, one-sample t-test, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and Friedman test. The examinations of the indicators proved the following as the most important items from the perspective of the respondents: the item of upselling in the economic component, the item of interaction and tolerance, and as a result, respecting the citizen rights in the social component, the item of enriching symbols and myths in the cultural component, and the item of developing sport infrastructures in the sports component. Friedman test results indicated that the cultural component is the most effective one with an average of 2.83. The findings of the present paper proved that Kazerun met the requirements for holding polo competitions. Holding polo competitions showed significant positive impacts in terms of all the examined areas.