IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v126y2023ics0264999323002535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competitive intensity and industry performance of professional sports

Author

Listed:
  • Guironnet, Jean-Pascal

Abstract

This paper discusses if an unbalanced league can lead to higher total revenues from attendance than a balanced league even though, theoretically, one expects the latter to be more attractive. At this aim, a new Bayesian statistical modelling is proposed, such as to explore the influence of the competitive structure on the attractiveness of men’s soccer top leagues By investigating French and English top leagues covering the seasons 2016-17 and 2017-18, we found that French attendance is positively correlated with competitive balance, whereas English attendance have a higher preference for the presence of star players. Furthermore, the attractiveness of matches is higher in each of the two leagues when the league is structured as an oligopoly, but for different reasons: (i) French attendance is higher for teams qualifying for inter-country competitions; (ii) English attendance is higher for matches between the six historical clubs of the Premier League.

Suggested Citation

  • Guironnet, Jean-Pascal, 2023. "Competitive intensity and industry performance of professional sports," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:126:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323002535
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106441
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999323002535
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106441?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Scelles, 2017. "Star quality and competitive balance? Television audience demand for English Premier League football reconsidered," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(19), pages 1399-1402, November.
    2. Walter C. Neale, 1964. "The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 1-14.
    3. 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.
    4. Biner, Burhan, 2013. "Is parity good? Externalities in professional sports," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 715-720.
    5. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1973. "Regression Analysis when the Dependent Variable is Truncated Normal," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(6), pages 997-1016, November.
    6. Scully, Gerald W, 1974. "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 915-930, December.
    7. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 242-242.
    8. Dennis Coates & Brad R. Humphreys & Li Zhou, 2014. "Reference-Dependent Preferences, Loss Aversion, And Live Game Attendance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 959-973, July.
    9. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence From Same-Stadium Derbies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 562-582, May.
    10. Wladimir Andreff, 2009. "Equilibre compétitif et contrainte budgétaire dans une ligue de sport professionnel," Post-Print halshs-00394910, HAL.
    11. Emilios Galariotis & Christophe Germain & Constantin Zopounidis, 2018. "A combined methodology for the concurrent evaluation of the business, financial and sports performance of football clubs: the case of France," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 266(1), pages 589-612, July.
    12. 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.
    13. Wladimir Andreff & Nicolas Scelles, 2015. "Walter C. Neale 50 Years After," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(8), pages 819-834, December.
    14. Lenten, Liam J.A., 2011. "The extent to which unbalanced schedules cause distortions in sports league tables," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 451-458.
    15. Jean-Marc Falter & Christophe Perignon, 2000. "Demand for football and intramatch winning probability: an essay on the glorious uncertainty of sports," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(13), pages 1757-1765.
    16. Babatunde Buraimo & Rob Simmons, 2015. "Uncertainty of Outcome or Star Quality? Television Audience Demand for English Premier League Football," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 449-469, November.
    17. Clement, Robert C & McCormick, Robert E, 1989. "Coaching Team Production," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(2), pages 287-304, April.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Vincent Hogan & Patrick Massey & Shane Massey, 2013. "Competitive Balance and Match Attendance in European Rugby Union Leagues," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(4), pages 425-446.
    21. 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.
    22. David Forrest & Rob Simmons, 2006. "New Issues in Attendance Demand," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(3), pages 247-266, August.
    23. Marcio Alves Diniz & Rafael Izbicki & Danilo Lopes & Luis Ernesto Salasar, 2019. "Comparing probabilistic predictive models applied to football," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(5), pages 770-782, May.
    24. 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.
    25. 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..
    26. 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.
    27. N. Scelles & C. Durand & L. Bonnal & D. Goyeau & W. Andreff, 2013. "Competitive balance versus competitive intensity before a match: is one of these two concepts more relevant in explaining attendance? The case of the French football Ligue 1 over the period 2008--2011," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(29), pages 4184-4192, October.
    28. Wen-Jhan Jane, 2014. "The Relationship Between Outcome Uncertainties and Match Attendance: New Evidence in the National Basketball Association," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 45(2), pages 177-200, September.
    29. A K Suzuki & L E B Salasar & J G Leite & F Louzada-Neto, 2010. "A Bayesian approach for predicting match outcomes: The 2006 (Association) Football World Cup," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(10), pages 1530-1539, October.
    30. Wladimir Andreff, 2009. "Equilibre compétitif et contrainte budgétaire dans une ligue de sport professionnel," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00394910, HAL.
    31. Peel, David A & Thomas, Dennis A, 1992. "The Demand for Football: Some Evidence on Outcome Uncertainty," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 323-331.
    32. Manuela Cattelan & Cristiano Varin & David Firth, 2013. "Dynamic Bradley–Terry modelling of sports tournaments," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 62(1), pages 135-150, January.
    33. James W. Meehan Jr. & Randy A. Nelson & Thomas V. Richardson, 2007. "Competitive Balance and Game Attendance in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(6), pages 563-580, December.
    34. Jean-Pascal Guironnet, 2018. "Incertitude de classement final et affluence en Ligue 1 française de football : une nouvelle approche," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(4), pages 641-666.
    35. Biner, Burhan, 2014. "Parity in professional sports when revenues are maximized," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 12-20.
    36. Georg Stadtmann & Dirk Czarnitzki, 2002. "Uncertainty of outcome versus reputation: Empirical evidence for the First German Football Division," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 101-112.
    37. Scelles, Nicolas (Сели, Николя) & Duran, Christophe (Дюра, Кристоф) & Bonnal, Liliane (Бонналь, Лилиан) & Goyeau, Daniel (Гойюс, Даниэль) & Andreff, Wladimir (Андрефф, Владимир), 2016. "Do all sporting prizes have a significant positive impact on attendance in a European national football league? Competitive intensity in the French Ligue 1 [Действительно Ли Все Спортивные Призы Ок," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 3, pages 82-107, June.
    38. Adam Cox, 2018. "Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-30, January.
    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. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Tim Pawlowski & Shlomo Weber, 2024. "Domestic Competitive Balance and International Success: The Case of The Football Industry," Papers 2402.08396, arXiv.org.

    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. 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.
    2. Schreyer, Dominik & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Torgler, Benno, 2016. "Against all odds? Exploring the role of game outcome uncertainty in season ticket holders’ stadium attendance demand," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 192-217.
    3. Francesco Addesa & Alexander John Bond, 2021. "Determinants of stadium attendance in Italian Serie A: New evidence based on fan expectations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-18, December.
    4. Jean-Pascal Guironnet, 2018. "Incertitude de classement final et affluence en Ligue 1 française de football : une nouvelle approche," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(4), pages 641-666.
    5. 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.
    6. Besters, Lucas, 2018. "Economics of professional football," Other publications TiSEM d9e6b9b7-a17b-4665-9cca-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty in the English Premier League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 625-644, June.
    8. Hojun Sung & Hyunwoong Pyun, 2023. "Disaggregated Attendance Demand: Comparing Daily Ticket Purchasers and Season Ticket Holders in K-League 1," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(6), pages 717-736, August.
    9. Dominik Schreyer & Benno Torgler, 2018. "On the Role of Race Outcome Uncertainty in the TV Demand for Formula 1 Grands Prix," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 211-229, February.
    10. Adam Cox, 2018. "Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-30, January.
    11. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & J. James Reade, 2023. "The Impact of Uncertainty on Fan Interest Surrounding Multiple Outcomes in Open European Football Leagues," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    12. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and Television Audience Demand: New Evidence from German Football," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(2), pages 140-161, May.
    13. Scelles, Nicolas (Сели, Николя) & Duran, Christophe (Дюра, Кристоф) & Bonnal, Liliane (Бонналь, Лилиан) & Goyeau, Daniel (Гойюс, Даниэль) & Andreff, Wladimir (Андрефф, Владимир), 2016. "Do all sporting prizes have a significant positive impact on attendance in a European national football league? Competitive intensity in the French Ligue 1 [Действительно Ли Все Спортивные Призы Ок," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 3, pages 82-107, June.
    14. Tim Pawlowski, 2013. "Testing the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis in European Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(4), pages 341-367, August.
    15. Anthony Macedo & Marta Ferreira Dias & Paulo Reis Mourão, 2023. "European Men's Club Football in the Eyes of Consumers: The Determinants of Television Broadcast Demand," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 579-623, June.
    16. Sung, Hojun & Mills, Brian M., 2018. "Estimation of game-level attendance in major league soccer: Outcome uncertainty and absolute quality considerations," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 519-532.
    17. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2019. "Football Spectator No-Show Behavior," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 580-602, May.
    18. Patrick J. Ferguson & Karim R. Lakhani, 2023. "Consuming Contests: The Effect of Outcome Uncertainty on Spectator Attendance in the Australian Football League," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(326), pages 410-435, September.
    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. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Applied probability; Outcome uncertainty; Bayesian inference; Total revenues;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • Z21 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Industry Studies

    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:eee:ecmode:v:126:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323002535. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.