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Unbalanced Schedules And The Estimation Of Competitive Balance In The Scottish Premier League

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  • Liam J. A. Lenten

Abstract

Since the season ending in 2001, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) has, unlike other European football leagues, utilised an unbalanced schedule, by which the strongest teams in a given season play each other an extra time, mutatis mutandis for the weakest teams. While this approach may make sense for several reasons, it also has implications for within‐season measures of competitive balance, because it creates biases in the set of win ratios from the end‐of‐season league table. This paper applies a simple log‐probability rule to calculate a set of adjusted win ratios correcting for this inherent bias. Such an adjustment is necessary if one wishes to compare within‐season competitive balance of the SPL with other European leagues. It is shown that by correcting for the unbalanced schedule, the SPL is consistently less competitive over the sample period. The implications of this finding are discussed at length.

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  • Liam J. A. Lenten, 2008. "Unbalanced Schedules And The Estimation Of Competitive Balance In The Scottish Premier League," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(4), pages 488-508, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:55:y:2008:i:4:p:488-508
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9485.2008.00463.x
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    Cited by:

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    4. Vincent (Vincent Peter) Hogan & Patrick Massey, 2020. "Professional Rugby on the Celtic Fringe," Working Papers 202003, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    5. Dorian Owen & Caitlin Owen, 2017. "Simulation Evidence on Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices as Measures of Competitive Balance," Working Papers 1715, University of Otago, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2017.
    6. Egon Franck & Markus Lang, 2014. "A Theoretical Analysis of the Influence of Money Injections on Risk Taking in Football Clubs," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(4), pages 430-454, September.
    7. Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2021. "The Effect of League Design on Spectator Attendance: A Regression Discontinuity Design Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 514-545, June.
    8. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Ross Booth, 2009. "Sports Economics," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 377-385, September.
    10. Liam J. A. Lenten & Niven Winchester, 2010. "Optimal Bonus Points in the Australian Football League," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 29(4), pages 407-420, December.
    11. Lenten, Liam J.A., 2011. "The extent to which unbalanced schedules cause distortions in sports league tables," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 451-458.
    12. Avila-Cano, Antonio & Owen, P. Dorian & Triguero-Ruiz, Francisco, 2023. "Measuring competitive balance in sports leagues that award bonus points, with an application to rugby union," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(2), pages 939-952.
    13. Liam J. A. Lenten, 2015. "Measurement of Competitive Balance in Conference and Divisional Tournament Design," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 3-25, January.
    14. Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2024. "The Effect of League Design on Club Revenues in the Scottish Premier League," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 1-28, January.
    15. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2018. "Unbiased Estimation of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues with Unbalanced Schedules," Working Papers 1801, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    16. Antonio Avila-Cano & Amparo Ruiz-Sepulveda & Francisco Triguero-Ruiz, 2021. "Identifying the Maximum Concentration of Results in Bilateral Sports Competitions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-19, June.
    17. Jason A. Winfree, 2021. "If You Don'T Like The Outcome, Change The Contest," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 329-343, January.
    18. Jason A. Winfree, 2020. "Rivalries, Bowl Eligibility, and Scheduling Effects in College Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(5), pages 477-492, June.
    19. Diána Ivett Furész & Pongrác Ács, 2020. "The Relation Between National Competition and International Competitiveness," Problemy Zarzadzania, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 18(87), pages 11-26.
    20. Patrick J. Ferguson & Karim R. Lakhani, 2023. "Consuming Contests: The Effect of Outcome Uncertainty on Spectator Attendance in the Australian Football League," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(326), pages 410-435, September.
    21. Ryan Dansby & R Todd Jewell, 2014. "A Violent Response to Changing the Rules of the Game: The Case of “The Split” in Scottish Premier League Soccer," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 473-487, September.
    22. Francisco Triguero Ruiz & Antonio Avila-Cano, 2019. "The distance to competitive balance: a cardinal measure," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(7), pages 698-710, February.
    23. Stephan Lenor & Liam J. A. Lenten & Jordi McKenzie, 2016. "Rivalry Effects and Unbalanced Schedule Optimisation in the Australian Football League," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(1), pages 43-69, August.
    24. Young Hoon Lee & Rodney Fort, 2023. "Division Play and Outcome Uncertainty in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 639-663, June.
    25. Rodney Fort & Young H. Lee, 2020. "Transition to an unbalanced Sports League schedule: adding the analysis of outcome uncertainty," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(51), pages 5629-5638, November.

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