How Online Communities Influence The Popularity Of Sport In Iran
The rise of sports in Iran is not limited to TV and print media anymore. Sports discourse is now carried out via social media forums. Persepolis Football Club, Esteghlal FC, and Team Melli spark lively chats on social media. Fans gather in Telegram groups, Instagram pages, the Tarafdari forum, and comments on Aparat. Millions of football fans follow these forums and, more importantly, a portion of this massive audience uses external websites like melbet apk as well.
The Anatomy Of An Iranian Online Sport Community
Typically, there are three levels of the community of Iranian footballers. First of all, there is a relatively moderate core ranging from 20 to 80 members who participate actively in organizing the channel or page. The second layer includes people ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 members who comment, react, and post several times a week. The last layer consists of 50,000 up to hundreds of thousands of members who only read information posted on the page.
The two biggest clubs of Tehran organize the greatest number of footballers around themselves. So, Telegram channels about Persepolis are attended by at least 80,000 up to 120,000 members during weeks when derbies occur. Similarly, communities connected with Esteghlal have slightly lower numbers of followers. Communities of Tractor, Sepahan, and Foolad have at least 20,000 up to 50,000 members. The community about the national team consists of footballers from various teams coming together to watch tournaments.
Three structural features define these communities:
- Low costs for joining, as it is a free membership which simply requires having a phone and a VPN wherever necessary;
- high levels of interaction due to frequent chat matches that generate hundreds of messages every hour;
- shared sense of identity based on club colors and rivalries.
This translates to engagement levels similar to those observed in fan clubs in major football-playing countries of Europe, even though they have not been as extensively covered by traditional media outlets in their environments.
Where The Communities Live And How They Operate
Four websites are known where the forums of Iranian sports can be found. The real-time chatting is done on Telegram. Visual posting is done on Instagram. The lengthy discussions are held in the forum of Iranian Football, which is called Tarafdari. Video posting is done on the Aparat sports channel.
Audience distribution on various platforms for 2024:
| Platform | Type of community activity | Estimated active Iranian users in football communities |
| Telegram | Real-time match discussion, news sharing | 12 million |
| Fan account engagement, meme distribution | 18 million across sport accounts | |
| Aparat | Video comment threads, creator communities | 4 million regular sport viewers |
| Tarafdari forum | Long-form discussion, archives | 800,000 monthly active |
| WhatsApp groups | Closed friend-group chat | Hard to measure, estimated 8 million |
Telegraph combined with Instagram covers most of the visible discussion within the community. The Tarafdari forum serves a different purpose. Even with fewer active members, it offers deeper discussions. It also acts as an unofficial history keeper for Iranian football fans. The discussion groups on WhatsApp tend to be private and difficult to estimate.
Club Fan Groups And Mega-Channels
These club-based mega-channels are akin to quasi-official media. The Persepolis fan-based channels with memberships of more than 100,000 produce content before, during, and after matches. This includes player lineups, live game updates, game comments, and transfer rumors. Some channels work independently. Others have unofficial ties to club officials. These officials share information much faster than the press office.
Moderators of such channels themselves gain considerable recognition. Community moderators have analyzed each match day for the past decade. Their opinions and views are now cited in Iranian sports literature.
Independent And Cross-Club Communities
There exists another level of communities that do not exist in the sphere of the clubs. Such communities include podcasts made in the Persian language for the fans of football, Discord channels created by Iranian footballers who live abroad, and cross-club channels about the Persian Gulf Pro League and European football.
The international websites also provide access to community members from Iran. For instance, there is a MelBet Instagram Jordan group, which is a Facebook community group, where discussions about match results, bet analysis, and prediction take place among Iranian football fans. This website is operated from outside Iran and attracts Persians who discuss the same topics.
Football-related discourse generated by cross-platform is among the best produced in Iran. Since there is no club affiliation involved, the discussion revolves around tactics, scouting, and transfer activities rather than the usual cycles of rejoicing and complaining common to the club-centric forums.
Types of active communities in Iranian sport online in 2024:
- telegram channels in clubs having more than 50,000 members each;
- instagram accounts featuring individual footballers like Azmoun, Taremi, and Beiranvand;
- Aparat channels based on individual football experts who speak Persian;
- sub-forums on Tarafdari forums for each club of the Persian Gulf Pro League;
- Discord servers catering to diaspora fans of Iranian football;
- WhatsApp groups of friends, which tend to be the most active layer daily.
The total community population is in the tens of millions when counted across all platforms with deduplication, although exact numbers are hard to verify because of overlap between platforms.
How Communities Shape Player And Club Popularity
Community sentiment makes itself felt via its effect on the popularity of players, the transfer narratives surrounding them, and the brand strength of the club. Well-performing players in terms of online communities experience an uptick in their commercial appeal compared to other players.
Sardar Azmoun established himself as a rising star through community interaction on Telegram and Instagram prior to landing lucrative endorsement deals. Mehdi Taremi is another player who developed himself similarly from the days he joined Porto up until his transfer to Inter Milan.
Conversely, those players who lose favor with communities experience a decline in their status within the club. Managers and club administrations factor the views of community members in selecting their squads, but it is rare for any such administration to state that explicitly in interviews.
The community’s voice carries weight even in the marketing and sponsorship strategy employed by clubs. Persepolis and Esteghlal consider the views of fans in deciding their next kit design or promotional materials, which involves surveying thousands of fans across Telegram channels.
What This Means For Marketing And Sponsorship
Today, brands marketing products and services to sports fans in Iran allocate a substantial share of their budget to placement within community-oriented channels, rather than in broadcasting channels. This process started developing back in 2021 and gained momentum after 2023. Community channels like Telegram, Instagram, and Aparat make up nearly 50% of the ad revenue for football content. The rest is split evenly between broadcasting and other channels.
These changes can be easily traced in practice. Sports sponsors nowadays often coordinate with community channel managers in parallel with cooperation with football clubs. Football players make agreements on sponsorships which are complemented by additional conditions related to community activity. Small clubs create official community management departments to facilitate their activities with regard to the surrounding channels.
The Iranian sports community becomes a truly market player. The next stage will focus on more ways to make money, a more professional approach to content production in community channels, and closer ties between community activities and sports clubs.