Identifying the investment opportunities of the private sector in sports in Alborz province

Sport is currently one of the most attractive markets in the field of investment. Iran's sports sector in general and Alborz province in particular are supported by government resources, and these government resources are dependent on various crises in the country such as currency market fluctuations and other unpredictable crises such as the corona virus.Therefore it is more important to pay attention to the issue of investing in sports in Alborz province for the development of the health sector, championship sports and professional sports of this province.With this description, this research was conducted with the aim of identifying the investment opportunities of the private sector in sports in Alborz province.The reason for choosing the topic of investing in sports is that, as Andreff & Andreff (2009) pointed out, investing in sports has been neglected. Also, only two foreign researches (Farouk, 2016) and two domestic researches (Jaffrey & Hemtinejad, 2021) were found in identifying private sector investment opportunities in sports. But none of them have focused on identifying investment opportunities in Iran's sports in general and Alborz province in particular. The present research method was qualitative in terms of practical results, exploratory purpose and in terms of the type of data.In this research, the statistical population of the current research is the previous and current heads of the General Directorate of Sports and Youth in Alborz province during the last five years, the previous and current deputy heads of the General Directorate of Sports and Youth in Alborz province during the last five years, the previous and current heads of sports departments andthe youth of the cities of Alborz province during the last five years, sports management professors of Alborz province who are aware of the issue of investing in sports, Knowledge-based sports companies, start-ups and sports equipment manufacturing companies in Alborz province.In order to collect information in this research, first, the investment opportunities of the private sector in sports in Alborz province were collected. Due to the lack of information in this area, semi-structured interviews were used. The interview time varied from 30 minutes to one hour and 45 minutes.In the interview process, the questions were asked in an order in which they have a logical system.Also, in the process of the interviews, considering that the interviewees did not allow the audio recording of the interview, the researcher used the method of note-taking and noted down and recorded the concepts and themes of the interviewees.The data analysis method in this part was based on thematic analysis method.Also, a PhD in sports management was requested to participate in the research as a research associate (coder) and help in reviewing the codings.At the end of this stage, after the necessary corrections, questionnaire items were prepared to use fuzzy Delphi to agree on the number of items. The descriptive findings of the research show that 5.6% of the people in the research sample are women and 94.4% are men. 5.6% of the statistical sample is in the age group of 30 years and under, 22.2% in the age group of 31 to 40 years, 55.5% in the age group of 41 to 50 years, and 16.7% in the age group of 51 years and older. 5.6% of participants' educational qualifications were diploma and sub-diploma, 16.7% bachelor's degree and 77.7% master's degree and above. The findings of the present research identify and rank seven opportunities for sports goods manufacturing companies, sports medicine, sports knowledge-based companies, sports start-ups, sports supplement manufacturing companies, sports venues and sports tourism. It led to investment in sports in Alborz province. These findings are consistency with the results of Farouk (2019), Noble (2019), Khatat Nejad (2016), Farouk (2019), Jæger (2019), Martín-González et al (2021),Campbell (2011), Mayol (2012), Alonso & Fernandez-Garcıa (2020), Deloitte (2017), Ratten & Thompson (2020) and Lakshmi & Narisetti (2020) . Based on the result, the highest average rank is related to the component of sports goods manufacturing companies and the lowest rank is related to the component of sports tourism. Considering the large area of Alborz province and its proximity to the capital and the high demand for the export of sports equipment to the whole country and abroad, it has led to the greatest desire to invest in sports goods manufacturing companies. While the dispersion and insufficient financial efficiency of sports tourism in Alborz province has led to the least willingness to invest in this sector.The findings of the present research identify and rank seven opportunities for companies producing sports goods, sports medicine, knowledge-based sports companies, sports start-ups, companies producing sports supplements, sports venues and sports tourism. It led to investment in sports in Alborz province. These findings are in agreement with the results of Nobel (2019) in the component of sports facilities; with the results of Martin Gonzalez, Surratt and Luke Gill (2021) in the sports tourism component; with the results of Campbell (2011) in the component of sports goods manufacturing companies; with the results of Alonso and Fernandez-Garcia (2020) in the component of sports supplement manufacturing companies; It is consistent with the results of Rotten and Thompson (2020) in the sports start-up component and with the results of Lakshimi and Naristi (2020) in sports medicine. On the other hand, it is inconsistent with some of the results of Farogh (2019) that there are other investment opportunities such as sports events, sports marketing, launching sports channels, sports financial support in the field of sports. In the end, by identifying seven factors and 71 indicators for the investment opportunities of the private sector in the sports of Alborz province, it can be said that there are various opportunities for investing in the sports of Alborz province, and attention can be paid to each of them for revenue from sports investors.