امیر رحیمی

Entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in the economic and sustainable development of all countries. The current research aimed to identify the opportunities and threats of the external environment of sports entrepreneurship in Ardabil, Iran based on the PESTLE model by examining the past and existing processes. A mixed approach was used to collect and analyze the research data. The research tool consisted of interviews and strategic council meetings. Theoretical and snowball sampling methods were used to reach the theoretical saturation (15 Experts). For analyzing the collected data in the qualitative section, a logical inductive method was used. The findings revealed that strategic environmental components of entrepreneurship in Ardabil province included: Ecological factors, Cultural and Social Factors, Political factors, Legal and juridical factors, Economic Factors, & Technological factors. According to the findings, considering the extracted factors in the process of spot entrepreneurship management can pave the way for developing entrepreneurship in sport setting. 

Sports startups are entering the knowledge-based economy, where knowledge and intangible assets are recognized as the most important factor in production as well as the most important competitive advantage. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to examine whether market knowledge can lead to the formation of entrepreneurial opportunities and commercialization in sports startups. The statistical population of the study consisted of 100 technology-based entrepreneurs of sports startups in IRAN. The research tool for this paper was a questionnaire containing 40 questions using a 5-point Likert scale. The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by factor analysis and AMOS 23 and SPSS software were used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest a significant impact of market knowledge (T=4.58, β = 0.45, p < 0.01) and each of its dimensions, namely Identifying the right market, Awareness of supply and demand trends, and Market technology on the entrepreneurial opportunity formation in sports startups. According to the results of the research, we can state the positive impact of the market knowledge on the level of entrepreneurial opportunities of sports startups. It was concluded that market knowledge based on the commercialization of sports science research is a potential source of value creation and competitive advantage for the startups that ultimately develop such enterprises and help improve the technology-driven entrepreneurship status of these enterprises and job creation in sport scope.