The Impact of Free Agency and the Salary Cap on Competitive Balance in the National Football League

Larsen, Andrew; Fenn, Aju J.; Spenner, Erin LeAnne

doi:10.1177/1527002505279345

Cited by 59 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…There is a well-developed literature on the topic of competitive balance and parity in sports leagues (Owen, 2010;Horowitz, 1997;Mizak et al, 2005;Lee, 2010;Hamlen, 2007;Cain and Haddock, 2006;Larsen et al, 2006;Ben-Naim et al, 2006;Késenne, 2000;Vrooman, 1995;Koopmeiners, 2012). However, most papers focus on quantifying the degree of team parity over consecutive years along with the effects of measures taken to increase or decrease it.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who’s good this year? Comparing the information content of games in the four major US sports

Wolfson

Koopmeiners

DiLernia

2017

Journal of Sports Analytics

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Abstract. In all four major North American professional sports (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey), the primary aim of the regular season is to identify the best teams. Yet the number of regular season games used to distinguish between the teams differs dramatically between the sports, ranging from 16 (football) to 82 (basketball and hockey) to 162 (baseball). While length of season is partially determined by factors including travel logistics, rest requirements, playoff structure and television contracts, from a statistical perspective the 10-fold difference in the number of games between leagues suggests that some league's games are more "informative" than others. In this paper, we propose a method to quantify the amount of information games yield about the relative strengths of the teams involved. Our strategy is to estimate a predictive accuracy curve which assesses how well simple paired comparison models fitted from X% of games within a season predict the outcomes of the remaining (100 − X)% of games, across multiple values of X. We compare predictive accuracy curves between seasons within each sport and across all sports, and find dramatic differences in the amount of information yielded by game results in the four major North American sports leagues.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who’s good this year? Comparing the information content of games in the four major US sports

Wolfson

Koopmeiners

DiLernia

2017

Journal of Sports Analytics

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“…The Gini Coefficient has been used extensively in other contexts as a measure of inequality among a set of values (e.g., inequality of income or wealth for a set countries). It has also been used to measure competitive balance (Larsen et al, 2006). If competitive balance exists within the league it will have Gini Coefficients closer to zero.…”

Section: Results For Hypothesis 1-competitive Balance Within Seasons mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Longitudinal Exploration of Strategic Isomorphism: The Case of the National Football League

York

Miree

2015

AJBM

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Within any given industry, firms are faced with the pressure to strive for increased uniqueness. The purpose of the current study is to explore a phenomenon known as strategic isomorphism (or increased homogeneity among firms as a result of deliberate strategic choice). To this end, this research used seven different statistical techniques, to examine performance data within the National Football League (NFL) across fifty-three NFL seasons in an effort to determine if the NFL had isomorphic characteristics (as measured by competitive balance). In testing for presence of competitive balance in the NFL, we found a low standard deviation in winning percentage across teams in the seasons 1960-2012, indicating that the NFL has been a league of teams of nearly equal strength. From a longitudinal perspective we found that the NFL has not been dominated by a few strong teams nor has any single NFL team has been able to maintain dominance across multiple seasons. The current study is one of very few longitudinal studies that examine strategic isomorphism within a competitive context. Its results provide evidence that under certain competitive conditions, striving for increased similarity among competitors may be appropriate strategic choice.

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“…En este sentido, podemos encontrar varios factores que diferencian unas ligas de otras y pueden afectar al balance competitivo. El factor que posiblemente inició este debate fue el reparto del talento deportivo entre los diferentes equipos, ya que una peor distribución afecta negativamente al balance competitivo (Larsen, Fenn, & Spenner, 2006). Por ello, las ligas deportivas han incluido una serie de limitaciones y reglas que intentan mantener un equilibrio en la distribución del talento, existiendo gran variedad de investigaciones que estudian sus repercusiones.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…Por ello, las ligas deportivas han incluido una serie de limitaciones y reglas que intentan mantener un equilibrio en la distribución del talento, existiendo gran variedad de investigaciones que estudian sus repercusiones. Entre dichas reglas podemos encontrar el draft (Grier & Tollison, 1994) o los agentes libres (Depken, 1999;Larsen et al, 2006), que permiten una distribución de los jugadores entre los equipos de forma más equitativa. Igualmente, los topes salariales (Larsen et al, 2006;Totty & Owens, 2011) y las tasas de lujo que se aplican por superar dichos topes (Dietl, Lang, & Werner, 2010) intentan impedir la acumulación de los mejores jugadores en pocos equipos y conseguir unas plantillas más equilibradas, penalizando a los equipos que no cumplan con los requerimientos especificados.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Competitive balance in European basketball leagues and the NBA

García-Unanue¹,

Godoy²,

Villarrubia³

et al. 2014

CCD

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ResumenLas ligas deportivas dependen del equilibrio competitivo entre los equipos para ser atractivas para los espectadores, de ahí la aparición del balance competitivo. Por ello, las distintas ligas deportivas han adquirido diferentes formatos que determinarán su competitividad. El objetivo de este artículo es comparar el balance competitivo de la NBA y las principales ligas europeas, teniendo en cuenta la NBA en su conjunto y cada una de sus conferencias de forma independiente. Las variables utilizadas para medir el balance competitivo han sido el índice Hirschman-Herfindal y las ratios C5 y C8. Los resultados muestran un mejor balance competitivo de la NBA en conjunto respecto a las ligas europeas, sin embargo estas diferencias desaparecen al analizar las conferencias de forma independiente. Se concluye que al tener en cuenta cada una de las conferencias de forma independiente, con una estructura más similar a las ligas europeas, se presenta un balance competitivo parecido bajo los indicadores utilizados. Sin embargo, la NBA incluye limitaciones en la competición que siguen favoreciendo la posibilidad de que sea más atractiva para el espectador. AbstractSports leagues depend on competitive equilibrium between teams to make it attractive for the fans; from that comes competitive balance. Thus, sport leagues have acquired different structures that determine their competitiveness. The aim of this paper is to compare the competitive balance of the NBA and the primary leagues in Europe, given the NBA as a whole as well as each of its conferences individually. The measurements utilised were the Hirschman-Herfindahl index and the C5 and C8 ratios. The results demonstrate a better competitive balance in the NBA as a whole than in the European leagues; however, the differences disappear when each conference is analysed as an individual league. We conclude, then, that given each conference individually, with structures that are similar to the European leagues, there is a competitive balance, taking into consideration the indicators we have used. However, the NBA includes limitations in the competition that favour the possibility of being more attractive for the fans.

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The Impact of Free Agency and the Salary Cap on Competitive Balance in the National Football League

Cited by 59 publications

References 22 publications

Who’s good this year? Comparing the information content of games in the four major US sports

Who’s good this year? Comparing the information content of games in the four major US sports

A Longitudinal Exploration of Strategic Isomorphism: The Case of the National Football League

Competitive balance in European basketball leagues and the NBA

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