Competitive balance within CONCACAF: a longitudinal and comparative descriptive review of the seasons 2002/2003–2017/2018

Determinants of competitive balance across countries: insights from European men’s football first tiers, 2006–2018

“…The concept of competitive balance (CB) is well established in the sports economics literature (Andreff & Scelles, 2015;Bond & Addesa, 2019, 2020Carreras & García, 2018;Fort & Maxcy, 2003;Plumley et al, 2018;Ramchandani et al, 2018;Rocke, 2019;Scelles, 2017;Weber et al, 2016;Wilson et al, 2018;Zheng et al, 2019). Simply put, it postulates the necessity of sporting equilibrium between playing strengths to generate outcome uncertainty and thus fan demand.…”

“…According to Fort and Maxcy (2003), there are two lines of literature on CB: its evolution over time or as a result of the introduction, disappearance or change in redistribution mechanisms (Analysis of CB); the impact on fans (Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis). Both lines are not limited to the study of a single league and, as such, can include comparisons between leagues or rely on several leagues (Rocke, 2019). Since Fort and Maxcy (2003), many studies on CB have continued to focus on these two lines, while others have attempted to improve the measurement of CB (see e.g.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Competitive Balance Between a Closed and an Open League in Rugby League

“…The analysis is divided by measures of points concentration and competitor dominance (Booth, 2005; Evans, 2014) in accordance with recent studies of competitive balance (Plumley et al, 2020; Ramchandani et al, 2018; Rocke, 2019). In total, five measures were used as metrics of balance: two concentration measures and three dominance measures.…”

“…Profit maximization has typically been linked to closed league systems where there is no risk of relegation and win maximization has more commonly been associated with open competitions that have no safety net for lowperforming teams (Késenne, 2000;Sloane, 1971;Vrooman, 1997). Differences in team ownership models and objectives (e.g., majority private investors vs. member owned) also impact whether teams pursue win or profit maximization and their efficiency in achieving such goals (Rohde & Breuer, 2018). For example, member-owned Australian Football League clubs are considered win maximizers within a closed league (Booth, 2004).…”

The evolution of competitive balance in men’s international cricket

“…The paper argues that open leagues are less balanced in general than closed leagues on the basis of the analysis (Buzzacchi et al, 2003) which brings the discussion to an interesting standpoint as international cricket involves promotion and relegation among the lower divisions, while the top tier of teams participating in test cricket is a closed league. Some studies have examined the relationship of different wider economic variables such as the GDP of the country and attendance in sport leagues against competitive balance scores for UEFA nations and FIFA rankings for CONCACAF nations (Rocke, 2019;Scelles et al, 2020). However, these methods cannot be replicated in this study due to the lack of availability of attendance data, GDP and ticket prices for all cricket playing nations examined in this paper for the duration of the study.…”