IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sek/iacpro/11113139.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare Maximizing Competitive Balance: the Evidence from Top European Football leagues

Author

Listed:
  • Dejan Trifunovi?

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade)

  • Vito Pipitone

    (CNR & LUMSA University)

Abstract

In this paper we consider the pattern of competitive balance and the share of gate receipts in the top 5 European football leagues and the Scottish Premier League. Based on empirically identified preferences of fans in these leagues from different studies, we aim to identify whether the change of competitive balance moves the league towards or away from the welfare maximizing competitive balance. We have identified the reduction of competitive balance in Serie A and the English Premier League (EPL) in the seasons 2010/11-2018/19. In Serie A, this change of competitive balance does not reduce welfare, while it reduces welfare in EPL. There is also the reduction of competitive balance in Ligue 1, that does not make stadium fans worse off, but possibly reduces the surplus of media fans. In the other considered leagues, there is no trend of competitive balance, and we can only identify welfare consequences of the change of competitive balance in some sub-periods.

Suggested Citation

  • Dejan Trifunovi? & Vito Pipitone, 0000. "Welfare Maximizing Competitive Balance: the Evidence from Top European Football leagues," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 11113139, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:sek:iacpro:11113139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iises.net/proceedings/2020-international-academic-conference-vienna/table-of-content/detail?cid=111&iid=013&rid=13139
    File Function: First version, 0000
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Buraimo, Babatunde & Simmons, Rob, 2009. "A tale of two audiences: Spectators, television viewers and outcome uncertainty in Spanish football," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 326-338, July.
    4. David Forrest & Robert Simmons & Babatunde Buraimo, 2005. "Outcome Uncertainty And The Couch Potato Audience," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(4), pages 641-661, September.
    5. M. Kevin McGee, 2016. "Two universal, probabilistic measures of competitive imbalance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(31), pages 2883-2894, July.
    6. 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.
    7. John Vrooman, 2015. "Sportsman Leagues," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 62(1), pages 90-115, February.
    8. 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.
    9. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 2011. "Optimal Competitive Balance In A Season Ticket League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 464-473, April.
    10. Lee Scyoc & M. Kevin McGee, 2016. "Testing for competitive balance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1029-1043, May.
    11. P. Dorian Owen, 2012. "Measuring Parity in Sports Leagues With Draws," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(1), pages 85-95, February.
    12. 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.
    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. Dejan Trifunović & Bojan Ristić, 2023. "The Impact Of The Horizontal Distribution Of Media Rights Revenues In Sports Leagues On Competitive Balance," Shaping Post-COVID World – Challenges for Economic Theory and Policy, in: Aleksandra Praščević & Miomir Jakšić & Mihail Arandarenko & Dejan Trifunović & Milutin Ješić (ed.),Shaping Post-COVID World – Challenges for Economic Theory and Policy, chapter 12, pages 263-285, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade.
    3. repec:beo:swcetp:23-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. 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.
    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. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. repec:qut:auncer:2013_04 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Lee Scyoc & M. Kevin McGee, 2016. "Testing for competitive balance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1029-1043, May.
    15. 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.
    16. Paul Madden, 2015. "Welfare Economics of “Financial Fair Play†in a Sports League With Benefactor Owners," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 159-184, February.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    20. 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.
    21. Fort, Rodney & Maxcy, Joel & Diehl, Mark, 2016. "Uncertainty by regulation: Rottenberg׳s invariance principle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 454-467.
    22. Schreyer & Torgler Benno & Schmidt Sascha L., 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and Television Audience Demand: New Evidence from German Football," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 140-161, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Football leagues; competitive balance; fan preferences; welfare maximization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sek:iacpro:11113139. 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: Klara Cermakova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://iises.net/ .

    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.