Investigating the causal relationship between the consequences of green sport and citizens’ sport participation of Golestan province with the mediating role of vitality

Despite the very positive physical and mental consequences of green sport, no much attention has been paid to culturalization of this activity and the citizens’ participation in public physical activities is very little despite the existence of amusement-sport parks . The purpose of this study is investigating the causal relationship between the consequences of green sport and citizens' sport participation with the mediating role of vitality from quantitative and qualitative perspectives. For this purpose, in several qualitative stages and by aggregating the sport management professors’ opinions , a new questionnaire on the consequences of green sport was compiled and completed by a statistical sample of 400 people from 9 cities of Golestan province. Descriptive statistics were used to classify raw scores, design a frequency distribution table and calculate dispersion indices such as mean, standard deviation and frequency and to answer the research questions, exploratory factor analysis and structural equations were used using LISREL software and confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed that the positive consequences of green sport, including social participation, environmental protection and physical and mental health have a direct positive and significant effect on increasing the citizens’ vitality  and their sport participation. Also, four vitality factors (beauty, security, health and comfort) increase citizens' sport participation. By reviewing these results, a conceptual model of green sport was presented and the examination of  the RMSEA goodness of fit indicators indicates the excellence of proposed model. Based on the results it is recommended that urban management be in such a way that the citizens are aware of the positive consequences of green sport in ordrd to increase the factors of urban vitality.