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Measurement of Competitive Balance in Conference and Divisional Tournament Design

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  • Liam J. A. Lenten

Abstract

The conference and divisional system has long been a staple part of tournament design in the major pro-sports leagues of North America. This popular but highly rigid system determines on how many occasions all bilateral pairings of teams play each other during the season. Despite the virtues of this system, it necessitates removing the biases it generates in the set of win ratios from the regular season standings prior to calculating within-season measures of competitive balance. This article applies a modified version of a recent model, an extension that is generalizable to any unbalanced schedule design in professional sports leagues worldwide, to correct for this inherent bias for the NFL over the seasons 2002-2011, the results of which suggest the NFL is even more competitively balanced than thought previously.

Suggested Citation

  • Liam J. A. Lenten, 2015. "Measurement of Competitive Balance in Conference and Divisional Tournament Design," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 3-25, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:16:y:2015:i:1:p:3-25
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002512471538
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Lewis & Yeujun Yoon, 2018. "An Empirical Examination of the Development and Impact of Star Power in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 155-187, February.
    2. Kendall, Graham & Lenten, Liam J.A., 2017. "When sports rules go awry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 377-394.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Young Hoon Lee & Rodney Fort, 2023. "Division Play and Outcome Uncertainty in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 639-663, June.
    6. Thomas J. Murray, 2018. "Examining the Relationship Between Scheduling and the Outcomes of Regular Season Games in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 696-724, June.
    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. 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. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2018. "Unbiased Estimation of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues with Unbalanced Schedules," Working Papers 1801, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    10. Jason A. Winfree, 2020. "Rivalries, Bowl Eligibility, and Scheduling Effects in College Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(5), pages 477-492, June.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.

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    Keywords

    competitive balance; measurement methods;

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