IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v20y2019i5p654-670.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does the NCAA’s Collegiate Model Promote Competitive Balance? Power-5 Conference Football Versus the NFL

Author

Listed:
  • E. Woodrow Eckard

Abstract

The disparity between athlete compensation and major sports revenues has produced criticisms of The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s Collegiate Model of athletic competition. In defense, the NCAA argues that it promotes competitive balance. One implication is that moving toward a professional model would reduce balance. The present article tests this hypothesis by comparing competitive balance in Power-5 conference football to that for the professional National Football League (NFL) using a variety of balance metrics. The results provide no support for the NCAA’s implicit hypothesis of less balance in the NFL, undermining competitive balance as a legitimate defense of the NCAA’s Collegiate Model.

Suggested Citation

  • E. Woodrow Eckard, 2019. "Does the NCAA’s Collegiate Model Promote Competitive Balance? Power-5 Conference Football Versus the NFL," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 654-670, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:20:y:2019:i:5:p:654-670
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002518798687
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002518798687
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002518798687?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    2. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2003. "The Anova-Based Competitive Balance Measure," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 74-80, February.
    3. Robert Brown, 2011. "Research Note: Estimates of College Football Player Rents," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(2), pages 200-212, April.
    4. Eckard, E Woodrow, 2001. "Free Agency, Competitive Balance, and Diminishing Returns to Pennant Contention," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 430-443, July.
    5. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2007. "Markets: Cartel Behavior and Amateurism in College Sports," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 209-226, Winter.
    6. 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.
    7. Richard Borghesi, 2018. "The Financial and Competitive Value of NCAA Basketball Recruits," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 31-49, January.
    8. Steven Salaga & Rodney Fort, 2017. "Structural Change in Competitive Balance in Big-Time College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 27-41, February.
    9. Brad R. Humphreys, 2003. "The Anova-Based Competitive Balance Measure," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 81-82, February.
    10. 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.
    11. Kathleen Carroll & Brad R. Humphreys, 2016. "Opportunistic Behavior in a Cartel Setting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(6), pages 601-628, August.
    12. Stephen A. Bergman & Trevon D. Logan, 2016. "The Effect of Recruit Quality on College Football Team Performance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(6), pages 578-600, August.
    13. Brad R. Humphreys, 2002. "Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 133-148, May.
    14. Rodney Fort & Joel Maxcy, 2003. "“Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues: An Introductionâ€," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(2), pages 154-160, May.
    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. Booth, Ross, 2005. "Comparing Competitive Balance in Australian Sports Leagues: Does a Salary Cap and Player Draft Measure Up?," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 119-143, September.
    2. Ross Booth, 2005. "Comparing Competitive Balance In Australian Sports Leagues, The Afl, Nbl And Nrl: Does The Afl'S Team Salary Cap And Player Draft Measure Up?," Monash Economics Working Papers 02/05, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    3. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    4. Young Lee & Rodney Fort, 2008. "Attendance and the Uncertainty-of-Outcome Hypothesis in Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(4), pages 281-295, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Lee, Travis, 2020. "Competitive Balance in the National Hockey League after Unrestricted Free Agency and the Salary Cap," MPRA Paper 108400, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Brent A. Evans & Joshua D. Pitts, 2018. "Cross-Sport Recruiting Effects in NCAA D1 Football and Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 820-842, August.
    9. Craig Garthwaite & Jordan Keener & Matthew Notowidigdo & Nicole Ozminkowski, 2020. "Who Profits from Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports," Working Papers 2020-117, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. Craig Garthwaite & Jordan Keener & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Nicole F. Ozminkowski, 2020. "Who Profits From Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports," NBER Working Papers 27734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. 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.
    13. Alistair Dawson & Paul Downward, 2005. "Measuring Short-Run Uncertainty of Outcome in Sporting Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(3), pages 303-313, August.
    14. Jan Šíma, 2013. "Static Competitive Balance of Three Chosen Central European Football Leagues," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(4).
    15. Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    16. R. Alan Bowman & James Lambrinos & Thomas Ashman, 2013. "Competitive Balance in the Eyes of the Sports Fan," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(5), pages 498-520, October.
    17. Jaret Treber & Rachel Levy & Victor Matheson, 2011. "Gender Differences in Competitive Balance in Intercollegiate Basketball," Working Papers 1106, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    18. Travis Lee, 2010. "Competitive Balance in the National Football League After the 1993 Collective Bargaining Agreement," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(1), pages 77-88, February.
    19. Richard Borghesi, 2017. "Pay for play: the financial value of NCAA football players," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(46), pages 4657-4667, October.
    20. Matthew Philip Makofske, 2018. "Are you hiring Johnny Football or Johnny Doe? Uncertain labour quality and the measurement of monopsony in college football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(22), pages 2415-2430, May.

    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:sae:jospec:v:20:y:2019:i:5:p:654-670. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.