Abstract
Team-fan identification is a new discussion included in the organizational behavior, marketing and particularly sport marketing based on the social identity theory. It is believed that identification acts beyond the loyalty to develop organizational interests. By this phenomenon, identification became a part of fan’s self-image followed by successful team. The present study develops a team-fan identification model from fan’s point of view. This study collects data from both qualitative and quantitative phases. Participants include 10 expert and fans of Iran pro-league. Sample size is 300 in the first phase and 720 in the second phase selected by a simple random method. Accordingly, the authors develop the team-fan identification model fitted to IPL in 2014-15 season by new ideas related to sport identification. Finally, a new team-fan identification model was developed in which dimensions of team and soccer identification are of great importance, instead of evaluative dimension. The factorial loadings are as follows: 0.93 cognitive identification, 0.87 affective identification, 0.86 team identification and 0.82 soccer identification.