Introduction: The purpose of this study is to examine the theoretical aspects of professional sport development and their applications in sport of Iran.
Methodology: This is a qualitative study in which some superior documents related to the development of sports, research papers and review articles, as well as some of the various proceedings, have been analyzed.
Results: Based on the results, there are both top-down and bottom-up development approaches. The basis of these, are hierarchical models of sport participation. The development of sport in cultural development form is emphasized in the first to fifth development plan of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Iran's 20-year outlook. That shows existence of cultural or educational-moral approach to Iran sport development. However, ignoring economic and elitist approach led to the slow progression in privatization and special and long-term investments. On the other hand, some countries in addition to supporting the public sports, concentrate on professional sports development through financial support and special talent identification processes. These are pursued through various models as centralized model, club model, networking model and personal model. Basically, in Iran the focus is on the club model and there is not completely centralized state model for basic courses. Also there is not network model to create a coalition and strategic alliance with sports of schools and universities.
Discussion: The theoretically speaking, at first a strategic link between sports and institutions of health, economic, culture and education system at level of governance and policy should be established. Then proper and applicable models with learning sports politics and helping native patterns should be utilized.