Iranian Citizens’ Willingness to Pay to Support the Iranian National Football Team in the Household Budget

Sports teams are of special economic importance to cities and countries because of the production and supply of private goods and provision of benefits offered by the characteristics of public goods.

In the present study, an attempt has been made to quantify the monetary value of some of the benefits provided by the national football team as a professional sports team in Iran. These values, which include consumption and non-consumption values, are estimated using the conditional valuation method (CVM). The present research is a descriptive-analytical method, which is applied in terms of purpose. The statistical population of this study was residents of Iran and the statistical sample size was measured by Mitchell and Carson table. Accordingly, a questionnaire was designed and by which the Iranian citizens’ willingness to pay for goods and benefits produced by the national football team was addressed and the factors affecting their willingness to pay for the national football team were identified. Spss and Excel software were also used for data analysis.

According to the research results, the Iranian citizens’ willingness to pay annually for the presence of the Iranian national football team in the Asian Cup was 18005 Tomans, 19418 Tomans for the national team to win the AFC Asian Cup, 21859 for participation in the World Cup qualifiers and 25050 Tomans for championship in the World Cup. Moreover, the average willingness to pay to buy tickets to watch matches in the stadium is 13338 Tomans and the average willingness to pay to watch them on TV is 5838 Tomans.

Iranian citizens’ willingness to pay shows that the presence of the Iranian national football team in the highest competitive levels of the country's sports has a positive effect on their desirability and well-being so that people are even willing to support their favorite team financially.