Investigation of response of the Esteghlal team fans to the sponsorship of rival team with a schadenfreude moderator role

In order to evaluate the response of Understanding the response of the Esteghlal team fans to the rival team sponsorship and also schadenfreude moderator role, a descriptive study of the structural interactions model was implemented. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the Esteghlal team fans of Tehran(n = 450). In order to measure the variables of the research, standard questionnaires such as previous attitude(Mitchell and Olson), perceived congruent(Speed and Thompson), fan identity(Dallas and Melankon, Angel et al.), schadenfruede(Dallas and Melankon, Angel et al.), sponsorship consequences (Speed and Thompson, Angel et al., Briqist) on a Likert scale of 5, were used. In order to evaluate the formal validity of the questionnaire, experts' opinions, content validity of the Karakas model (CVR=0/62), structural validity, confirmatory factor analysis and structural interactions model were used. The findings demonstrated that the sponsorship consequences model has a suitable fit (R2= 0/70). The previous attitude and the fan identity influenced on the sponsorship consequences, and the schadenfruede also moderated the relationship between perceived congruent and sponsorship consequences. In general, heterogeneity in sponsor responses is a new topic in sports marketing theory, which has not been well investigated to date. This also requires more research in the future