Introduction and Objective: Nostalgic marketing stimulates the senses and emotions of consumers. The aim of this research is to design a model of nostalgic emotions and preferences of the fans of Esteghlal Football Club in Tehran.

Methodology: The research method was mixed, with a sequential-exploratory design, systematic strategy, and path analysis, with a fundamental-developmental purpose. In the qualitative section, 15 experts in the field of sports marketing management were selected through purposeful theoretical sampling. In the quantitative section, 384 consumers and fans of the blue apparel of Esteghlal Football Club responded to a researcher-designed questionnaire using stratified random sampling. Qualitative analysis was conducted through three rounds of interviews until saturation and theoretical consensus were achieved for open, axial, and selective coding of the categories of the nostalgic emotions model and sports consumers' preferences. Quantitative analysis was performed using path analysis in Smart PLS (2) statistical software.

Findings: The paradigm model of the research encompassed four dimensions; 31 categories, 160 concepts, and 180 items, including six constructs: causal conditions, central phenomenon, strategies, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, and outcomes. The relationships between the constructs of causal conditions with the central phenomenon, the central phenomenon with strategies, contextual conditions with strategies, intervening conditions with strategies, and strategies with the outcomes of stimulating nostalgic emotions and consumer preferences were significant (T ≥ 1.98) and the model fit was evaluated as strong (GOF = 0.547).

Conclusion: This study showed that marketing managers of sports organizations can benefit from the positive consequences of branding nostalgic products and help attract and retain loyal customers by identifying and analyzing fans' nostalgic feelings, designing nostalgia-based marketing strategies, utilizing internal and external branding, measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of strategies, and training employees.