IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v70y2023i3p231-248.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On competitive balance in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Triguero‐Ruiz
  • Antonio Avila‐Cano

Abstract

This article examines competitive balance in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League over the last two decades (1999/2000–2017/2018). Competitive balance is considered both before and after a competition. Have the groups been designed in such a way as to ensure similar levels of competitive balance ex ante? Have the demonstrated strengths (ex post competitive balance) of the different groups been similar over each season? What is the relationship between the competitive balance in the designed groups and that achieved in the same groups after the competition? Are the performance achieved in terms of ex post competitive balance similar to ex ante competitive balance levels? We found that, despite expectations, the groups' ex ante competitive balance was not homogeneous. Although ex ante competitive balance serves as a good predictor, on average, of ex post competitive balance, we observed significant differences at the levels of group and seasons. Therefore, it is possible to improve the design mechanism of the groups that make up the group stage of the champions so that they are composed homogeneously in terms of ex ante competitive balance.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Triguero‐Ruiz & Antonio Avila‐Cano, 2023. "On competitive balance in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(3), pages 231-248, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:70:y:2023:i:3:p:231-248
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12338
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12338
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjpe.12338?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeroen Schokkaert & Johan Swinnen, 2016. "Uncertainty of Outcome Is Higher in the Champions League Than in the European Cup," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(2), pages 115-147, February.
    2. Wladimir Andreff, 2015. "Disequilibrium Sports Economics: Competitive Imbalance and Budget Constraints," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01305633, HAL.
    3. Jigyu Chung & Young Hoon Lee & Joon-Ho Kang, 2016. "Ex Ante and Ex Post Expectations of Outcome Uncertainty and Baseball Television Viewership," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(8), pages 790-812, December.
    4. Andrew S. Zimbalist, 2002. "Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 111-121, May.
    5. P. Owen & Michael Ryan & Clayton Weatherston, 2007. "Measuring Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports Using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(4), pages 289-302, December.
    6. Croissant, Yves & Millo, Giovanni, 2008. "Panel Data Econometrics in R: The plm Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i02).
    7. Dennis Coates & Brad R. Humphreys & Li Zhou, 2014. "Reference-Dependent Preferences, Loss Aversion, And Live Game Attendance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 959-973, July.
    8. Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez & Julio del Corral & R. Todd Jewell & Jorge García-Unanue & Cornel Nesseler, 2019. "A Prospective Analysis of Competitive Balance Levels in Major League Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 175-190, February.
    9. M. Kringstad & Bill Gerrard, 2004. "The Concepts of Competitive Balance and Uncertainty of Outcome," IASE Conference Papers 0412, International Association of Sports Economists.
    10. John Charles Bradbury, 2019. "Determinants Of Revenue In Sports Leagues: An Empirical Assessment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 121-140, January.
    11. Lee Scyoc & M. Kevin McGee, 2016. "Testing for competitive balance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1029-1043, May.
    12. Jaume Garcia & Placido Rodriguez, 2007. "Spanish Football: Competitive Balance and the Impact of the UEFA Champions League," IASE Conference Papers 0715, International Association of Sports Economists.
    13. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. 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.
    15. Wladimir Andreff, 2015. "Disequilibrium Sports Economics: Competitive Imbalance and Budget Constraints," Post-Print hal-01305633, HAL.
    16. Tim Pawlowski & Christoph Breuer & Arnd Hovemann, 2010. "Top Clubs’ Performance and the Competitive Situation in European Domestic Football Competitions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 186-202, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. László Csató, 2024. "Club coefficients in the UEFA Champions League: Time for shift to an Elo-based formula," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 119-134, March.
    2. L'aszl'o Csat'o & D'ora Gr'eta Petr'oczy, 2024. "The myth of declining competitive balance in the UEFA Champions League group stage," Papers 2406.19222, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    3. Csató, László & Bodnár, Gergely, 2023. "Mérhetnénk jobban a csapatok erejét a Bajnokok Ligájában? Fontos megjegyzés az Európai Labdarúgó-szövetség számára [How to better measure team strength in the Champions League. An important message," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 813-827.
    4. L'aszl'o Csat'o, 2023. "Club coefficients in the UEFA Champions League: Time for shift to an Elo-based formula," Papers 2304.09078, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. Antonio Avila‐Cano & Francisco Triguero‐Ruiz, 2023. "On the control of competitive balance in the major European football leagues," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 1254-1263, March.
    3. Antonio Ávila-Cano & Francisco Triguero-Ruiz, 2018. "The distribution of soccer leagues scores that generates the minimum of competitive balance: Truncated-Cascade Distribution," Working Papers 2018-04, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    4. 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.
    5. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    6. László Csató & Dóra Gréta Petróczy, 2024. "Bibliometric indices as a measure of performance and competitive balance in the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 32(4), pages 961-988, December.
    7. Hojun Sung & Brian M. Mills & Younghoon Lee, 2022. "Moments of Competitive Balance in Major League Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 329-354, April.
    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. Franziska Prockl & Dirk Semmelroth, 2018. "Perception Versus Reality - Competitive Balance In Major League Soccer From 1996 – 2016," Working Papers Dissertations 36, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    10. Meletakos, Panagiotis & Chatzicharistos, Dimitrios & Apostolidis, Nikolaos & Manasis, Vasilios & Bayios, Ioannis, 2016. "Foreign players and competitive balance in Greek basketball and handball championships," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 391-401.
    11. Santiago-Caballero, Carlos & Fernández-Roldán Díaz, Alejandro, 2017. "Decomposing competitive balance in the major European football leagues : a Rawlsian approach," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 24658, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    12. Qi Ge & Brad R. Humphreys & Alexander Eisert, 2022. "Vertical Integration and Competitive Balance in Professional Sports: Evidence from Minor League Baseball," Working Papers 22-07, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    13. Georgios Nalbantis & Tim Pawlowski & Dennis Coates, 2017. "The Fans’ Perception of Competitive Balance and Its Impact on Willingness-to-Pay for a Single Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(5), pages 479-505, June.
    14. Nicolas Scelles & Aurélien François, 2021. "Does a country’s income inequality affect its citizens’ quest for equality in leisure? Evidence from European men’s football," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 133-139.
    15. 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.
    16. Weber, Shlomo & Moreno-Tenero, Juan, 2019. "The interdependence of domestic and international success: the case of the UEFA Champions League," CEPR Discussion Papers 13927, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Brian M. Mills & Rodney Fort, 2023. "Performance Quality Preference Heterogeneity in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(3), pages 352-373, April.
    18. 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.
    19. Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez & Julio del Corral & R. Todd Jewell & Jorge García-Unanue & Cornel Nesseler, 2019. "A Prospective Analysis of Competitive Balance Levels in Major League Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 175-190, February.
    20. Alexander John Bond & Francesco Addesa, 2020. "Competitive Intensity, Fans’ Expectations, and Match-Day Tickets Sold in the Italian Football Serie A, 2012-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 20-43, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:70:y:2023:i:3:p:231-248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.