Investigating the causal and underlying conditions affecting the provision of sports services to female spectators in Iran

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the causal and underlying conditions affecting the provision of sports services to female spectators in Iran. The qualitative research method was applied in this study. The statistical population included the chief executive officers and the board of directors of the league and federations of football, volleyball, and basketball, senior managers of sports stadiums, female spectators attending the official women’s competitions, female spectators having a history of attending the stadiums and sports halls during the official male competitions, and academic experts in field of sports management who were familiar with the sports events; the theoretical sampling method was used in this research. In this study, 32 elite individuals were interviewed through 32 semi-structured interviews until achieving the theoretical saturation. Data collection tool included the semi-structured interviews. The results indicated 7 main causal conditions including the financial support, facilities, cultural issues, management resources, management approaches, benefits of the provision of services to female spectators, and social issues. Also, based on the results, the underlying conditions were classified into the 2 categories of the nature of spectators’ presence and the nature of sport.