Purpose: The purpose of the research was to investigate the nostalgia of sports tourism with a modeling approach at the collective level of nostalgia through the attitudes and behavioral intentions of the spectators of the premier football league.
Materials and methods: The research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of method, and its statistical population was all the spectators present at the home games of the football teams of Iran's premier league (N= 1000000). The statistical sample for the collective level model was randomly selected among all the spectators present at the home games of the football teams of Iran's premier football league, and 308 completed questionnaires were returned. The data collection tool was the revised questionnaire of Chu (2014). The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by 5 experts in the field of sports management. The reliability of questionnaires was obtained using Cronbach's alpha coefficient for nostalgia questionnaire α=0.93, attitude α=0.91, behavioral intentions α=0.89. For data analysis, SPSS 20 software package was used to perform descriptive statistics and Lisrel version 0.9 to perform inferential statistics (CFA, SEM). CFA results showed that all components (except behavioral intentions) were confirmed in the model.
Findings: The SEM results showed that nostalgia and its components have a significant effect on the audience's attitude and behavioral intentions in the collective level model (Sig<0.05). Nostalgia and its components have a significant relationship with the audience's attitude and behavioral intentions in the collective level model (Sig < 0.05). Attitude did not have a significant mediating role in the relationship between nostalgia and behavioral intentions of spectators at the collective model level.
Conclusion: According to the results of the research, it can be suggested to sports marketers that by inviting old and legendary players to matches and using them in advertisements, they evoke a sense of nostalgia and strengthen people's attitudes. With this approach, it can be predicted that the attitudes and behavioral intentions of the audience will increase.