IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/liv/livedp/202306.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does a super league tournament harm domestic leagues? Evidence from basketball’s Euroleague

Author

Listed:
  • Babatunde Buraimo
  • Jing Guan
  • J.D. Tena

Abstract

Sports leagues are traditionally considered as natural monopolies. Therefore, understanding how different sports competitions interact is a fundamental economic question. In particular, it is unclear how a closed (or semi-closed) elite tournament affects the level of competition in domestic leagues. On the one hand, it facilitates access to more financial resources that can increase the gap between big and small teams at the national level. But, on the other hand, participating in more competitions could also imply more fatigue and lack of concentration on the domestic league, given the greater demand that is placed on playing talent. This paper studies the effect of participating in basketball’s Euroleague tournament on team performance in eight national leagues. We find that Euroleague participation harms national performance, reducing the probability of victory by around 9% in ‘big’ leagues (i.e. those with the strongest teams). However, no significant effect was found for the rest of the league.A potential transmission channel for this effect is the higher reduction in the number of days between matches. Overall, the present paper suggests that a superleague tournament could contribute to reducing the gap between big and small clubs, at least in the strongest national leagues. We discuss the political implications of this result.

Suggested Citation

  • Babatunde Buraimo & Jing Guan & J.D. Tena, 2023. "Does a super league tournament harm domestic leagues? Evidence from basketball’s Euroleague," Working Papers 202306, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:liv:livedp:202306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/schoolofmanagement/docs/ECON,WP,202306.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2023
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oberhofer, Harald & Philippovich, Tassilo & Winner, Hannes, 2010. "Distance matters in away games: Evidence from the German football league," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 200-211, April.
    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. Ramón Flores & David Forrest & J. D. Tena, 2010. "Impact on Competitive Balance from Allowing Foreign Players in a Sports League: Evidence from European Soccer," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 546-557, November.
    4. Tim Pawlowski & Christoph Breuer & Arnd Hovemann, 2010. "Top Clubs’ Performance and the Competitive Situation in European Domestic Football Competitions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(2), pages 186-202, April.
    5. Stefano Cabras & Marco Delogu & J.D. Tena, 2023. "Forced to play too many matches? A deep-learning assessment of crowded schedule," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(52), pages 6187-6204, November.
    6. Di Mattia, Alessandro & Krumer, Alex, 2023. "Fewer teams, more games, larger attendance? Evidence from the structural change in basketball's EuroLeague," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(1), pages 359-370.
    7. Mark W. Nichols, 2014. "The Impact of Visiting Team Travel on Game Outcome and Biases in NFL Betting Markets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(1), pages 78-96, February.
    8. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2013. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship," IZA Discussion Papers 7519, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Pina, Gonçalo, 2019. "Task scheduling and performance: Evidence from professional surf tournaments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PB).
    10. Kelly E. Carter, 2017. "Relative Home‐Court Advantage: The Impact of Travel on Team Production When One Team is Closer than its Opponent to a Neutral Game Site," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 76-91, January.
    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. Stefano Cabras & Marco Delogu & J.D. Tena, 2023. "Forced to play too many matches? A deep-learning assessment of crowded schedule," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(52), pages 6187-6204, November.
    2. Seungwhan Chun & Sang Soo Park, 2021. "Home Advantage in Skeleton: Familiarity versus Crowd Support," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(1), pages 3-26, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Warnke, Arne Jonas & Sittl, Roman, 2016. "Competitive Balance and Assortative Matching in the German Bundesliga," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145838, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Matthieu Llorca & Thierry Teste, 2016. "Dépenses salariales et performance dans l’industrie du football," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 125-145.
    6. Tim Pawlowski, 2013. "Testing the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis in European Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(4), pages 341-367, August.
    7. Budzinski, Oliver & Pawlowski, Tim, 2014. "The behavioural economics of competitive balance: Implications for league policy and championship management," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 89, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    8. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2013. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship," IZA Discussion Papers 7519, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Oliver Gürtler & Markus Lang & Tim Pawlowski, 2015. "On the Release of Players to National Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(7), pages 695-713, October.
    10. 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.
    11. Marc Dubois, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Post-Print hal-04692979, HAL.
    12. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(5), pages 482-507, June.
    13. Egon Franck & Markus Lang, 2014. "A Theoretical Analysis of the Influence of Money Injections on Risk Taking in Football Clubs," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(4), pages 430-454, September.
    14. Oliver Budzinski, 2011. "The Institutional Framework for Doing Sports Business: Principles of EU Competition Policy in Sports Markets," Working Papers 1103, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    15. Gasparetto, Thadeu & Barajas, Angel, 2016. "Reanalisando a competitividade na indústria do futebol: diferença acumulada de pontos," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 56(3), May.
    16. Budzinski, Oliver & Kunz-Kaltenhäuser, Philipp, 2020. "Promoting or restricting competition? - The 50plus1-rule in German football," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 141, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    17. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2021. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Football? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(8), pages 982-1008, December.
    18. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    OR in sports; basketball; Euroleague; difference-in-differences; heterogeneous treatment effects;
    All these keywords.

    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:liv:livedp:202306. 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: Rachel Slater (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mslivuk.html .

    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.