Investigating the Role of Mass Media in the Development of Private Sector Participation in Sport

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of mass media in the development of participation of private sector in sport. To collect information,  related literature and documents were reviewed. Also a researcher-made questionnaire was used that it's face validity was confirmed by several experts and sport management professors and it's construct validity was approved using confirmatory factor confirmation. Reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha (0.9). The samples consisted of two groups of sport managers and experts, and media managers and experts (130 people). Present study is applied in terms of result and descriptive in terms of data collection. Mass media and its functions as independent variables and participation of private sector were considered as dependent variable. Some of the most important results of the research were that the  role of awareness and information, education, promotion, culture of public media influenced the development of participation of private sector in sport in Ardebil province. The most important roles of mass  media in the development of participation of private sector in sport were the priority of the role of culture, promotion, awareness and information, education and social participation respectively. There was a significant difference between the views of the subjects  about the role of mass media in the development of participation of private sector in sport, while media sector managers were more inclined to participate in the private sector in sport. It is concluded that in order to participate in the private sector in sport, managers should be familiar with the functions of the media.