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Measuring Competitive Balance in Sports using Generalised Entropy with an Application to English Premier League Football

Author

Listed:
  • Vani Borooah

    (Economics and Politics - University of Ulster)

  • John Edward Mangan

    (Economics - UQ [All campuses : Brisbane, Dutton Park Gatton, Herston, St Lucia and other locations] - The University of Queensland)

Abstract

A central issue in the economics of sport is the degree of competitive balance in sporting contests. The importance attached to competitive balance is predicated on the belief is that it is uncertainty about the outcomes of sporting contests that attracts spectators and sponsors. In a perfectly balanced competition, each team would have an equal chance of winning every match and, therefore, of winning the championship or the league. By contrast, the absence of competitive balance would mean that the results of sporting contests would become predictable and attendance at sporting contests would suffer. The general theme that underpins the issue of competitive balance is that of inequality. This paper proposes a general measure of competitive balance based on the based on the Generalised Entropy approach to measuring inequality and shows how this might be interpreted in terms of the league's welfare. The measures are applied to results from the 2006-07 season of the English Premier League.

Suggested Citation

  • Vani Borooah & John Edward Mangan, 2011. "Measuring Competitive Balance in Sports using Generalised Entropy with an Application to English Premier League Football," Post-Print hal-00666678, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00666678
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2010.537638
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00666678
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Champions League and the Coase Theorem," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Football Economics and Policy, chapter 10, pages 202-225, Palgrave Macmillan.
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    5. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    6. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    7. Lief Brandes & Egon Franck, 2007. "Who Made Who – An Empirical Analysis of Competitive Balance in European Soccer Leagues," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 379-403, Summer.
    8. Brad R. Humphreys, 2002. "Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 133-148, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Burdekin, Richard C.K. & Franklin, Michael, 2015. "Transfer spending in the English premier league: the haves and the have nots," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 232, pages 4-17, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Lee Scyoc & M. Kevin McGee, 2016. "Testing for competitive balance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1029-1043, May.
    4. Marc Dubois, 2020. "Dominance Criteria on Grids for Measuring Seasonal Competitive Imbalance in Sports Leagues," Working Papers hal-02617635, HAL.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    8. Geenens, Gery, 2014. "On the decisiveness of a game in a tournament," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 156-168.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. C. P. Barros & O. H. dos S. Figueiredo & Silvestre Dumbo, 2016. "A performance assessment of the Angolan soccer league," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(29), pages 2711-2720, June.

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