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How to account for changes in the size of Sports Leagues: The Iso Competitive Balance Curves

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  • Jean-Pascal Gayant

    (TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, GAINS - Groupe d'Analyse des Itinéraires et des Niveaux Salariaux - UM - Le Mans Université)

  • Nicolas Le Pape

    (TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The issue of Competitive Balance is a central issue in the literature on the economics of professional sports. The basic idea is that the managers of professional sports leagues must maintain a certain level of competitive balance in their league if they want it to remain attractive (Rottenberg (1956), El Hodiri & Quirk (1971), Fort & Quirk (1995), Vrooman (1995), Kesenne (2000), ...). An important part of literature is also devoted to the mechanisms to restore a satisfactory level of competitive balance: salary caps, luxury taxes, draft rules, gate revenue sharing... Although some authors challenge the idea that a decrease in competitive balance necessarily leads to a weakening of fan interest (Szymanski (2001)), all agree on the need to measure adequately the balance. As mentioned by Zymbalist (2002), the most commonly used index is the standard deviation of win percentage. But other indexes can be used as the ratio of the actual to the idealized standard deviation of win percentages, the Gini coefficient of win percentages, the Hirshman-Herfindahl index of competitive balance, the Concentration Ratio, the ratio of the top to bottom win percentages, the index of dissimilarity...

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Pascal Gayant & Nicolas Le Pape, 2012. "How to account for changes in the size of Sports Leagues: The Iso Competitive Balance Curves," Working Papers halshs-00856122, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00856122
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00856122
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrew S. Zimbalist, 2002. "Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 111-121, May.
    2. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "Income Inequality, Competitive Balance and the Attractiveness of Team Sports: Some Evidence and a Natural Experiment from English Soccer," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Football Economics and Policy, chapter 9, pages 182-201, Palgrave Macmillan.
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    5. Stefan Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
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    1. Nicolas Scelles & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Daniel Goyeau & Wladimir Andreff, 2013. "My team is in contention? Nice, I go to the stadium! Competitive intensity in the French football Ligue 1," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 2365-2378.
    2. Antonio Avila-Cano & Francisco Triguero-Ruiz, 2024. "Did the UEFA Champions League winners start in an easy group?," Journal of Economic Analysis, Anser Press, vol. 3(3), pages 161-172, September.
    3. Nicolas Scelles & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Daniel Goyeau, 2013. "My team is in contention? Nice, I go to the stadium! Competitive intensity in the French football ligue 1," Post-Print halshs-02111064, HAL.
    4. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    5. 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.
    6. Nicolas Scelles & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Daniel Goyeau & Wladimir Andreff, 2013. "My team is in contention ? Nice, I go to the stadium ! Competitive intensity in the French football ligue 1," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-02111064, HAL.
    7. Nicolas SCELLES, 2016. "Wladimir Andreff (Ed.), Disequilibrium Sports Economics: Competitive Imbalance and Budget Constraints," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 393-410, June.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Jean‐Pascal Gayant & Nicolas Le Pape, 2017. "Increasing Downside or Outer Risk? The Challenge of Measuring Competitive Imbalance in Closed and Open Leagues," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(3), pages 774-795, January.
    11. 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.

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    Keywords

    Iso Competitive Balance Curves; sports;

    JEL classification:

    • L8 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services

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