IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-00856122.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00856122/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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.
    3. Craig Depken, 1999. "Free-Agency and the Competitiveness of Major League Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 14(3), pages 205-217, May.
    4. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 242-242.
    5. 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.
    6. Stefan Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
    7. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 1995. "Cross-subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1265-1299, September.
    8. El-Hodiri, Mohamed & Quirk, James, 1971. "An Economic Model of a Professional Sports League," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 1302-1319, Nov.-Dec..
    9. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2005:i:5:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Daniel Mizak & Armond Rossi & Anthony Stair, 2005. "Assessing alternative competitive balance measures for sports leagues: a theoretical examination of standard deviations, gini coefficients, & the index of dissimilarity," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(5), pages 1-11.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.

    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. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    2. Wladimir Andreff, 2009. "Équilibre compétitif et contrainte budgétaire dans une ligue de sport professionnel," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 60(3), pages 591-633.
    3. Wladimir Andreff, 2011. "Some comparative economics of the organization of sports: Competition and regulation in north American vs. European professional team sports leagues," Post-Print halshs-00677436, HAL.
    4. 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.
    5. Wladimir Andreff, 2011. "Some comparative economics of the organization of sports: Competition and regulation in north American vs. European professional team sports leagues," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00677436, HAL.
    6. Andrew Larsen & Aju J. Fenn & Erin Leanne Spenner, 2006. "The Impact of Free Agency and the Salary Cap on Competitive Balance in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(4), pages 374-390, November.
    7. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    8. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & J. James Reade, 2022. "Does certainty on the winner diminish the interest in sport competitions? The case of formula one," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 1059-1079, August.
    9. Jan Šíma, 2013. "Static Competitive Balance of Three Chosen Central European Football Leagues," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(4).
    10. Dietl Helmut M & Duschl Tobias & Lang Markus, 2011. "Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, August.
    11. Wladimir Andreff, 2011. "Some comparative economics of the organization of sports: competition and regulation in north American vs. European professional team sports leagues," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 8(1), pages 3-27, June.
    12. Sang Hun Sung & Doo-Seung Hong & Soo Young Sul, 2020. "How We Can Enhance Spectator Attendance for the Sustainable Development of Sport in the Era of Uncertainty: A Re-Examination of Competitive Balance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-15, August.
    13. Richard Evans, 2014. "A review of measures of competitive balance in the ‘analysis of competitive balance’ literature," Birkbeck Sports Business Centre Working Papers 9, Birkbeck College, Department of Management.
    14. 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.
    15. Di Domizio Marco, 2008. "Win the best, win the largest or win the richest. Some empirical evidence from Italian championships," wp.comunite 0047, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    16. Oliver Gürtler & Markus Lang & Tim Pawlowski, 2015. "On the Release of Players to National Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(7), pages 695-713, October.
    17. Markus LANG & Alexander RATHKE & Marco RUNKEL, 2010. "The Economic Consequences Of Foreigner Rules In National Sports Leagues," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 31, pages 47-64.
    18. Carlo Bellavite Pellegrini & Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio, 2021. "Relative wages, payroll structure and performance in soccer. Evidence from Italian Serie A (2007-2019)," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0015, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    19. 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.
    20. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Iso Competitive Balance Curves; sports;

    JEL classification:

    • L8 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-00856122. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.