IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/img/bbksbc/9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A review of measures of competitive balance in the ‘analysis of competitive balance’ literature

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Evans

    (Department of Management, Birkbeck University of London)

Abstract

This paper presents a review of measures of the competitive balance of sports leagues proposed in the line of literature which Fort and Maxcy (2003, p. 155) call “… the analysis of competitive balance (ACB) literature itself†. They describe this as the literature which “… focuses on what has happened to competitive balance over time or as a result of changes in the business practices of pro sports.†A number of books and articles have provided surveys of these measures of competitive balance. This review consolidates that work and augments it by adding details to facilitate the appropriate application and interpretation of the measures. This paper also considers the applicability of the measures of competitive balance in the literature to the professional leagues of association football.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:img:bbksbc:9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/18390/1/18390.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Owen, P. Dorian, 2010. "Limitations of the relative standard deviation of win percentages for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 38-41, October.
    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. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2003. "The Anova-Based Competitive Balance Measure," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 74-80, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Young Hoon Lee & Rodney Fort, 2005. "Structural Change in MLB Competitive Balance: The Depression, Team Location, and Integration," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(1), pages 158-169, January.
    6. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 242-242.
    7. Daniel Rascher, 1997. "A model of a professional sports league," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 3(3), pages 327-328, August.
    8. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2004:i:9:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Stergios Skaperdas, 1996. "Contest success functions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 283-290.
    10. Jason Winfree & Rodney Fort, 2012. "Nash Conjectures and Talent Supply in Sports League Modeling," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 306-313, June.
    11. Stefan Szymanski & Stefan Késenne, 2010. "Competitive Balance and Gate Revenue Sharing in Team Sports," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 7, pages 229-243, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Lawrence Hadley & James Ciecka & Anthony C. Krautmann, 2005. "Competitive Balance in the Aftermath of the 1994 Players’ Strike," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(4), pages 379-389, November.
    13. Jeff Borland, 1987. "The Demand for Australian Rules Football," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 63(3), pages 220-230, September.
    14. Daniel Mizak & Anthony Stair & John Neral, 2007. "The adjusted churn: an index of competitive balance for sports leagues based on changes in team standings over time," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 26(3), pages 1-7.
    15. E. Eckard, 1998. "The NCAA Cartel and Competitive Balance in College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(3), pages 347-369, June.
    16. Dobson,Stephen & Goddard,John, 2011. "The Economics of Football," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521517140, January.
    17. 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..
    18. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2005:i:5:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. Trandel Gregory A & Maxcy Joel G, 2011. "Adjusting Winning-Percentage Standard Deviations and a Measure of Competitive Balance for Home Advantage," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-17, January.
    22. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:26:y:2007:i:3:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Stefan Szymanski, 2004. "Professional Team Sports Are Only a Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 111-126, May.
    24. P. Dorian Owen, 2012. "Measuring Parity in Sports Leagues With Draws," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(1), pages 85-95, February.
    25. Peter J. Sloane, 2000. "The Regulation of Professional Team Sports," IASE Conference Papers 0003, International Association of Sports Economists.
    26. Gary Koop, 2004. "Modelling the evolution of distributions: an application to Major League baseball," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 167(4), pages 639-655, November.
    27. Daniel Mizak & Anthony Stair, 2004. "The relationship between payroll and performance disparity in major league baseball: an alternative measure," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(9), pages 1-14.
    28. Martin Schmidt, 2001. "Competition in Major League Baseball: the impact expansion," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 21-26.
    29. Daly, George & Moore, William J, 1981. "Externalities, Property Rights and the Allocation of Resources in Major League Baseball," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 19(1), pages 77-95, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Fort, Rodney & Maxcy, Joel & Diehl, Mark, 2016. "Uncertainty by regulation: Rottenberg׳s invariance principle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 454-467.
    3. 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.
    4. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Liam J. A. Lenten, 2017. "A Formal Test for Asymmetry in the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 253-270, April.
    7. P. Dorian Owen & Nicholas King, 2015. "Competitive Balance Measures In Sports Leagues: The Effects Of Variation In Season Length," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 731-744, January.
    8. Gyimesi, András, 2021. "Hosszú távú versenyegyensúly egy csapatsportliga közgazdasági modelljében [Long-term competitive balance in an economic model of a team sports league]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 585-616.
    9. Hayley Jang & Young Hoon Lee & Rodney Fort, 2019. "Winning In Professional Team Sports: Historical Moments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 103-120, January.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Helmut M. Dietl & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2011. "Competitive Balance and Revenue Sharing in Sports Leagues With Utility-Maximizing Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 284-308, June.
    13. Helmut Dietl & Egon Franck & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2009. "Contest Theory and its Applications in Sports," Working Papers 0029, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA).
    14. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Martin B. Schmidt, 2021. "The Competitive Returns To The Global Search For Talent: Professional Sports Markets And Foreigners," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 396-419, January.
    16. 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.
    17. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2019. "A Bias-Corrected Estimator of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 479-508, May.
    18. Terry Robinson & Robert Simmons, 2014. "Gate-Sharing and Talent Distribution in the English Football League," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 413-429, November.
    19. repec:qut:auncer:2013_04 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 2010. "Optimal Competitive Balance in Single-Game Ticket Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(6), pages 587-601, December.
    21. Kelly Goossens, 2006. "Competitive balance in european football: comparison by adapting measures: national measure of seasonal imbalance and Top 3," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 2(2), pages 77-122, Dicembre.

    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:img:bbksbc:9. 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: Dominic Funston (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dmbbkuk.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.