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If fan demand is driven by balanced competition and/or the spectacle of the game, then all teams can do well. However, if winning is what really counts, life becomes very difficult for the teams at the bottom of the standings each year. In contrast to the dominant role played by television and media rights today, the calculation was more clear-cut during US baseball's early days when simply getting fans in the stands was what paid the bills. Although our panel data analysis shows that other factors like home runs hit and competitive balance were also significant over the 1892–1940 period, it appears that fans then, like today, mostly just wanted to see their favourite team win. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the National Football League (NFL) annual draft, teams take turns selecting entering players. The draft is a market mechanism designed to promote competitive balance as the NFL assigns draft positions to teams in reverse order relative to last season's performance. Teams frequently trade draft picks for other picks and/or players. We use several market valuations of draft picks to define original draft currency as the total value of draft picks available before any trades and final draft currency as the total value of picks used after all trades. For the 2002–2021 period, we find that original draft currency does not affect the probability of reaching the playoffs, but final draft currency does. Usage of outdated market valuations of draft picks by most teams can help explain how the best team has used draft-pick trades to remain among the strongest teams over two decades thereby perpetuating competitive imbalance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue for the application of bibliometric indices to quantify the long-term uncertainty of outcome in sports. The Euclidean index is proposed to reward quality over quantity, while the rectangle index can be an appropriate measure of core performance. Their differences are highlighted through an axiomatic analysis and several examples. Our approach also requires a weighting scheme to compare different achievements. The methodology is illustrated by studying the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League in the 20 seasons played between 2003 and 2023: club and country performances as well as three types of competitive balance are considered. Measuring competition at the level of national associations is a novelty. All results are remarkably robust concerning the bibliometric index and the assigned weights. Since the performances of national associations are more stable than the results of individual clubs, it would be better to build the seeding in the UEFA Champions League group stage upon association coefficients adjusted for league finishing positions rather than club coefficients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The format of the UEFA Champions League, one of the most prestigious competitions in association football, will see a fundamental change from the 2024/2025 season. A declared aim of the reform is improving competitive balance, supported by the previous literature that found a significant decline in the competitive balance of the UEFA Champions League group stage over the recent decades. We introduce alternative measures for both ex ante and ex post competitive balance. The former is based on the Elo ratings of the clubs, while the latter compares the final group ranking to the seeding of the teams used for the group draw. These measures do not imply any trend in competitive balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revenue sharing is a pervasive policy in professional sports leagues. While it is usually justified as promoting competitive balance, previous work has shown that it actually worsens balance in models where equilibrium outcomes are determined by contest success functions and when the league's goal is to maximize aggregate revenue. This paper offers an alternative justification for revenue sharing in such settings--namely, to balance two offsetting externalities: the "rent-seeking externality" and the "spillover externality." The first reflects the "race" to be first, and the second captures the value fans attach to overall league quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposal of the European Super League and the 2024/25 reform of the UEFA Champions League are both major events in European club football. This study compares the competitive balance (CB) of these new tournament formats with the previous Champions League format. Short-, mid- and long-term CB are quantified by measuring the average uncertainty of match outcomes, the ratio of stakeless matches, and the recurrence ratio of teams in knockout rounds. A simulation method is applied using the teams, their seeding, and Elo ratings in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 Champions League seasons. Results suggest that the 2024/25 reform improves CB, especially in match uncertainty and the occurrence of stakeless matches. In comparison, the Star League of the European Super League concept of December 2023 is superior concerning average match uncertainty. However, it has a worse CB regarding stakeless matches and dynamic CB. Reasons and suggestions for improvement are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formula One (F1) is considered as one of the most popular sports worldwide. However, no previous research inspected its determinants of attendance. This paper aims to cover this gap. The dataset includes races from 2015 to 2019. The impact of uncertainty of outcome (UO) is firstly addressed by coefficient of variation, Herfindahl–Hirschman and Gini. Later, a specific metric for F1 is presented. The econometric approach consists in Ordinary Least Squares regressions with season and circuit fixed effects. The results evidence that an increase in price slightly reduces the demand as well as a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between attendance and UO. Moreover, the findings suggest that the latest performance of a local driver has a significant positive effect in the attendance level. The empirical results provided may aid F1 races' organizers maximizing live attendances. The findings offered here suggest the use of specific UO indexes for different sport disciplines in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze fans' demand for live football matches in the German 2. Bundesliga, focusing on match-outcome uncertainty. To examine the decision to attend sporting events, a fixed effects regression and the Tobit model were used to test the uncertainty of game outcomes and reference-dependent preferences with loss aversion. The estimated fans' demand for attending live football matches is represented by the logged attendance of 2,442 matches from the 2010/2011 to the 2017/2018 seasons of the 2. Bundesliga. Our findings indicate that fans prefer certain game outcomes over uncertain ones. In other words, reference-dependent preferences with loss aversion dominate the desire for close competition. We estimated our main model using various proxies of uncertainty as robustness checks, and the results confirmed our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both UEFA and the EU institutions favour the local training of young sports players, to guarantee a healthy development of European sports and their players. Recent empirical research supports the idea that professional football players need initial experience in a domestic first team to realise successful careers, a requirement that is threatened by increasing international youth player mobility. Existing measures are scarce, mainly focus on a legal perspective and do not realise the envisaged objectives. This study has the objective to develop new measures to more easily retain young talents in their European domestic league, without limiting the free movement of professional players. This paper's main contribution is the proposition of flexible, quantitative measures, based on microeconomic models, to (1) create a level playing field for player wages to increase the domestic league's attractiveness for domestic players, (2) curtail player loans and (3) better reward clubs' youth training efforts, while at the same time discouraging adverse international youth transfers. The impact on the overall competitive balance between leagues is assessed as well. Existing measures to realise UEFA's and the EU's objective of limiting international youth transfers have been demonstrated to be insufficient. In this paper, economic measures are developed, in order to retain youth players sufficiently long, while safeguarding professional player mobility and the international competitive balance, to guarantee the further development of talents and the sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opinions regarding the impact of the domestic league's competitive balance (CB) on continental club competition sporting success are divided. Through the data of the last 18 seasons (2004/05–2021/22) and 576 games, we have examined whether the teams from a more balanced domestic league can achieve more unexpected results in the Champions League group stage. The current study aims to contribute to previously published literature by applying the market value-based surprise index. The results of panel logistic regression models suggest that a lower domestic league's CB in a given season can support teams to overperform in the international field in the same season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, a core principle of sports economics has been the claim that fans desire balanced competition—the so-called Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis (UOH). While this idea has intuitive appeal, it runs counter to the equally obvious importance of partisanship in shaping fan interest in sporting contests. The absence of a well-accepted theoretical basis for the UOH, coupled with a lack of compelling empirical evidence in support of it, suggests important gaps in the literature. This paper takes a step toward addressing the former need by offering a contest utility function, based on standard Cobb-Douglas preferences, which embodies both partisanship and a demand for competitive balance. The model is used to derive a willingness-to-pay function for game tickets and an expression for aggregate attendance. Findings from the empirical literature are discussed in light of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Mixed communities of plant species with different functional traits or microbial associations can more fully utilize soil nutrient pools. However, there is a gap in our understanding of the synergistic influences of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in nutrient capture and resource partitioning across different soil depths in mixed plant communities, as well as their possible effects on plant coexistence. To address these knowledge gaps, we assessed the effect of AM fungi on nutrient uptake and competition between shallow- and deep-rooted pairs of grass and legume species. Methods: To quantify the mycorrhizal mediation of N uptake at different soil depths, 15N tracer was injected into soil at 3- and 25-cm depths of microcosms planted with monoculture or bi-species mixtures, with or without AM fungi. Results: AM symbioses reduced plant competition by equalizing access to N and subsequently increasing shoot N and P concentrations of plant species on mixed communities. Niche differentiation had minimal effects on grass and legume competitive interactions. Both deep-rooted plant species, i.e., Medicago sativa and Dactylis glomerata, and shallow-rooted species, i.e., Lolium perenne and Trifolium repens, primarily acquired nutrients from shallow soil layers. However, AM fungi significantly enhanced nutrient uptake and facilitated N2 fixation in legumes at 3 and 25 cm soil depths. Conclusion: Our results suggest AM fungi strongly influence host-plant competitiveness and vertical nutrient capture in mixed plant communities, underscoring that microbial mutualist-mediated nutrient acquisition is a key driver of gains in productivity of grass–legume mixtures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluctuating resource availability plays a critical role in determining non‐native plant invasions through mediating the competitive balance between non‐native and native species. However, the impact of fluctuating resource availability on interactions among non‐native species remains largely unknown. This represents a barrier to understanding invasion mechanisms, particularly in habitats that harbor multiple non‐native species with different responses to fluctuating resource availability. To examine the responses of non‐native plant species to nutrient fluctuations, we compared the growth of each of 12 non‐native species found to be common in local natural areas to nutrients supplied at a constant rate or supplied as a single large pulse in a pot experiment. We found that seven species produced more biomass with pulsed nutrients compared to constant nutrients (hereafter "benefitting species"), while the other five species did not differ between nutrient enrichment treatments (hereafter "non‐benefitting species"). To investigate how nutrient fluctuations influence the interactions among non‐native plant species, we established experimental non‐native communities in the field with two benefitting and two non‐benefitting non‐native species. Compared with constant nutrient supply, the single large pulse of nutrient did not influence community biomass, but strongly increased the biomass and cover of the benefitting species and decreased those of the non‐benefitting species. Furthermore, the benefitting species had higher leaf N content and greater plant height when nutrients were supplied as a single large pulse than at a constant rate, whereas the non‐benefitting species showed no differences in leaf N content and were shorter when nutrients were supplied as a single large pulse than at a constant rate. Our results add to the growing evidence that the individual responses of non‐native species to nutrient fluctuation are species‐specific. More importantly, benefitting species were favored by nutrients coming in a pulse, while non‐benefitting ones were favored by nutrients coming constantly when they grew together. This suggests that nutrient fluctuations can mediate the competitive balance among non‐native plants and may thus determine their invasion success in a community harboring multiple non‐native plant species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper asks to what extent team tactics qualify as internal sources of competitive advantage in team sport industries. Team tactics are complex routines for situated action, which require highly skilled actors to perform them. However, in an industry structure facilitating a highly unequal allocation of athletic talent, the potential of tactical routines to create competitive advantage is limited and incentives to exploit new routine options are dulled. The paper addresses the research question on the basis of a quantitative case study on empty goal tactics in German professional league handball. There is evidence for a strong quality hierarchy between teams. Superior teams perform significantly better in standard tactic situations. A new tactical option is used primarily to resort to standard routines. New routines are avoided when incompatible with already established routines and do not promise a competitive advantage. In a highly hierarchical team sports industry, the key resource heterogeneity, which creates competitive advantage, remains athletic talent. Creating new tactical options will not suffice to increase competitive balance. Teams have to develop key upstream higher-level routines before team tactics become relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses competitive balance (CB) in all formats of men's international cricket longitudinally between 1877 and 2019 with the results broken down into segregated time periods to account for changes in the format of the sport over the course of its history. Using recognised measures of league concentration, the results display a mixed picture in respect of competitive balance across the various formats of cricket. Men's international cricket has seen growth in the last five years after all Twenty20 (T20) matches between International Cricket Council (ICC) member nations have been awarded international status and competitive balance in all formats of the game has remained relatively stable. No significant changes have been observed in CB scores in test and One Day Internationals (ODI) while improvement in CB scores have been observed for T20I. We did not find any impact of the introduction of T20I on competitive balance in ODI cricket. In a broader governance context, questions remain over the potential for further growth of the international cricket market given the dominant market position of the full members of ICC, in particular India, Australia and England, who have access to majority of the central revenue funding from the governing body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses ex-ante and ex-post competitive balance in Major League Soccer (MLS) based on compiled data from 1996 to 2016. Considering ex-post results and ex-ante information using betting odds allows investigating the development of both dimensions of competitive balance. While the results of the ex-post competitive balance measurements indicate a league that becomes more balanced over time, the ex-ante results suggest a tendency towards imbalance with reduced uncertainty of game outcomes. The findings will help MLS officials to draw conclusions to support decision-making around expansion activities or necessary regulations based on the ex-ante and ex-post balance or imbalance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of this study has been the examination and comparison of the competitive balance of the Spanish and the English first leagues of soccer, called La Liga Santander and Barclays Premier League. The basis for the research project has been provided by a database of sixteen hundred elements, containing the data of the two leagues starting from the 2014/2015 season up to the 2017/2018 season. When choosing the time period for the study, we intended to avoid having to deal with the impact of Covid-19, which is why we picked exactly these competition seasons. We have primarily used statistical indicators. In the case of sports-related data, our inquiries have included the following: comparing and averaging the winning percentages per season, furthermore, the winning percentages of championship seasons, the distribution of goals scored and conceded and, finally, the calculation of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. Although there is one aspect of investigation according to which the competition balance of La Liga is closer to the optimal, the dispersion of winning percentages and the indicator of the goals conceded as well as the HHI index show that the Premier League is the more balanced competition of the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitive balance is of much interest in the sports analytics literature and beyond. We develop a statistical network model based on an extension of the stochastic block model to assess the balance between teams in a league. We represent the outcome of all matches in a football season as a dense network with nodes identified by teams and categorical edges representing the outcome of each game as a win, draw, or a loss. The main focus and motivation for this paper is to assess the issue of competitive balance in the context of the English First Division / Premier League over more than 40 seasons. Our analysis provides evidence suggesting a structural change around the early 2000s from a reasonably balanced league to a two-tier league. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines competitive balance in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League over the last two decades (1999/2000–2017/2018). Competitive balance is considered both before and after a competition. Have the groups been designed in such a way as to ensure similar levels of competitive balance ex ante? Have the demonstrated strengths (ex post competitive balance) of the different groups been similar over each season? What is the relationship between the competitive balance in the designed groups and that achieved in the same groups after the competition? Are the performance achieved in terms of ex post competitive balance similar to ex ante competitive balance levels? We found that, despite expectations, the groups' ex ante competitive balance was not homogeneous. Although ex ante competitive balance serves as a good predictor, on average, of ex post competitive balance, we observed significant differences at the levels of group and seasons. Therefore, it is possible to improve the design mechanism of the groups that make up the group stage of the champions so that they are composed homogeneously in terms of ex ante competitive balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It seems that one cannot find many papers relating entropy to sport competitions. Thus, in this paper, I use (i) the Shannon intrinsic entropy (S) as an indicator of "teams sporting value" (or "competition performance") and (ii) the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHi) as a "teams competitive balance" indicator, in the case of (professional) cyclist multi-stage races. The 2022 Tour de France and 2023 Tour of Oman are used for numerical illustrations and discussion. The numerical values are obtained from classical and and new ranking indices which measure the teams "final time", on one hand, and "final place", on the other hand, based on the "best three" riders in each stage, but also the corresponding times and places throughout the race, for these finishing riders. The analysis data demonstrate that the constraint, "only the finishing riders count", makes much sense for obtaining a more objective measure of "team value" and team performance", at the end of a multi-stage race. A graphical analysis allows us to distinguish various team levels, each exhibiting a Feller-Pareto distribution, thereby indicating self-organized processes. In so doing, one hopefully better relates objective scientific measures to sport team competitions. Moreover, this analysis proposes some paths to elaborate on forecasting through standard probability concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching data literacy and sports economic fundamentals can be seen by students as unengaging when taught in the traditional lecture format. An activity using student participation in a fantasy league draft was used to actively engage students. This activity focused on learning the economic concepts of the Noll-Scully measure, Gini coefficient, Lorenz curve and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). Marginal product was used to evaluate player performance, and competitive balance were used to evaluate league performance. It also taught data literacy skills such as locating and entering data and using Excel functions to organize and clean data. Students ran regression models to proxy the concept of marginal product in evaluating relative performance and collected data to compare players' predicted point contribution. The activity can be refined for similar courses in data literacy and sports economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe and South America have dominated the world of soccer since its inception. We compare the competitiveness level and degree of winning difficulty of their top international competition--the European Championship (Euro) and Copa America. The competition format, formal competitive balance measures, the FIFA rankings, and regression analysis are used to conclude that is far more difficult for one nation to win the Euro than it is to be successful at the South American counterpart. These results have important implications in the amount of money that should be channeled to each competition, to the regional weights/importance given by FIFA on the elaboration of its national team rankings, and on the cross-comparison of the success of players when coming from the different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a model where two sports leagues compete for sporting talent, and at the same time consider the competitive balance in their domestic championships. The allocation of broadcasting revenues by the league-governing body acts as an incentive for teams to invest in talent. We derive a strategic league authority's optimal sharing rule of broadcasting revenues across teams in the league. While a weighted form of performance-based sharing is the best way of attracting talent, cross-subsidization from high- to low-payroll teams is required to improve competitive balance. The optimal sharing rule is then a combination of these two "sub-rules". We show that the distribution of broadcasting revenues in two first divisions in European men's football, the English Premier League (EPL) and the French Ligue 1 (L1), corresponds to the optimal sharing rule we discuss. We propose a new method to assess empirically the cross-subsidization impact of the sharing formula. As the impact of cross-subsidization is greater in the EPL than L1, we conclude that ensuring domestic competitive balance seems to be a more important target for the EPL than for L1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the combined effect of equal revenue sharing and endogenous salary caps in a dynamical setting. It is shown that (i) a combination of equal revenue sharing and salary caps cannot eliminate competitive imbalance in the league; (ii) the share of player salaries has no impact on the distribution of talent among teams; (iii) under equal revenue sharing, the introduction of salary restrictions is not meant to prevent player salaries from rising, but to prevent them from falling; and (iv) under equal revenue sharing and salary caps, the reverse-order draft is incompatible with talent investment incentives of teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs the Bai-Perron (BP) approach to perform a time series analysis of two measures of competitive balance (CB) in the unexplored area of the Mexican football league. A significant break point where CB experienced a substantial reduction is found. The time of the break point coincides with a modification of the league's regulations, which implemented two short tournaments instead of a single annual season to increase the revenue by doubling the final playoff games. This paper also establishes a first periodisation of the league's evolution, from its professionalisation in 1943 to 2015, on the basis of key historical events. In defence of the invariance principle, elements of collusion do not seem to have repercussions in CB. Nevertheless, the findings support the argument regarding the potential of significant regulatory changes to affect competitive equilibrium in sports contests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Shanghai Physical Education Institute / Shanghai Tiyu Xueyuan Xuebao is the property of Shanghai Physical Education Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies the effect of outcome uncertainty (OU) on fan attendance in sports. First, it develops a theoretical model of fan attendance in which fans derive utilities from match quality and team quality. The theoretical results suggest that empirical models should control for the effect of team quality ("standard model") to identify the effect of OU or include a cubic term of win probability ("alternative model"). Second, the paper evaluates previous empirical studies. It finds that they adopted the standard model, but often failed to control for the effect of team quality. Third, the paper applies the two empirical models to samples that are drawn from the English Premier League and from Major League Baseball. The empirical results from the standard model are sensitive to model specifications, whereas those from the alternative model are consistent across different specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitive balance remains a core component of sport economics literature and an important management consideration for league organisers. This paper analyses competitive balance in the 'top five' women's football leagues in Europe longitudinally between 1997/98 and 2018/19. Using recognised measures of league concentration and dominance, the results display a mixed picture in respect of competitive balance across the five major women's leagues in European football. The women's football industry has seen positive growth during the last ten years while competitive balance in most of the leagues examined has remained relatively stable. Some significant differences were detected in the levels of concentration between leagues. There was also some variation in terms of some leagues being dominated by a fewer number of teams. However, these two measures of competitive balance (concentration and dominance) were not necessarily correlated with each other. In a broader governance context, questions remain over the potential for further growth in the women's game as leagues are moving towards commercialisation of TV rights from 2021 to 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Global Sport Management is the property of the Global Alliance of Marketing & Management Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses competitive balance in 24 top-division domestic football leagues in Europe before and after the implementation of UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. Our analysis covers 22 seasons between 2000/01 and 2021/22 and utilises indicators of overall league concentration and dominance. Seven of the 24 leagues examined have seen a statistically significant worsening of league concentration post-FFP, fourteen leagues experienced a decline in the number of top-four finishers and thirteen saw a reduction in the number of unique title winners. The weight of evidence indicates that FFP has adversely affected competitive balance in several European football leagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the 2016/17 season, the International Ski Federation conducted major changes to its starting lottery, which defines the starting order in advance of each race of the speed disciplines. As part of this change, the top seeded athletes from then on were able to pick a starting position. Therefore, the aim of this study is two-folded. First, we explored the pick behavior of the top athletes and analyzed if they were able to identify favorable starting positions. Second, we investigated the influence of the rule change on competitive balance. Our sample consisted of 322 races with 17,725 individual performances of the seasons 2011/2012 to 2020/2021 and all our analysis were run separately for Women’s Downhill, Women’s Super G, Men’s Downhill and Men’s Super G. We could show that for all disciplines and both genders athletes heavily preferred to start around starting position 7. To start from such positions only led to significantly better rankings in Men’s Super G (z = 2.04, p = .041), but common language effect size showed the same trend for Women’s Super G (CL: 51.9%) as well as Men’s (CL: 53.3%) and Women’s Downhill (CL: 53.6%) competitions. In addition, male starters seeded among the top 7 performed significantly better after the rule change (Downhill: z = 2.95, p = .002; Super G: z = 2.89, p = .002), whereas they performed worse in Women’s Super G (z = -2.77, p = .005). Our findings indicate that there is a change in competitive balance for men’s competitions but not for women’s competitions. In addition, combining these findings with the detected picking preferences of the top athletes, we conclude our work with suggestions for further adaptions of the starting lottery.

IntroductionWhile most of the available literature on competitive balance analyses its impact on ticket sales and TV audiences, less empirical research is available that examines the observable variation in competitive balance across leagues and over time. This paper studies the concentration of player talent and end-of-season league points to empirically assess whether leagues with a more equal distribution of player talent produce a more balanced competition than leagues with less equal distribution.MethodsThe longitudinal data we use to estimate our empirical model comes from professional soccer leagues in twelve Western European countries from 2005/06 thru 2020/21, yielding 5,299 club-season observations.ResultsOur empirical analysis indicates that talent concentration in a league significantly and positively impacts points concentration in that league. However, in specifications controlling for year, country, and division, this impact is only weakly significant or insignificant, suggesting that talent concentration does not significantly affect competitive balance in that league. Additionally, our findings demonstrate that the relationship between talent and points concentration does not vary considerably across the European leagues or over time.DiscussionOur results suggest that repeated participation in the UEFA Champions League, with its considerable monetary returns by (more or less) the same subset of teams, does not increase competitive imbalance in the respective national league. Thus, with relatively few additional regulatory interventions, the promotion and relegation system in the open European soccer leagues seems effective in ensuring a balanced competition.

IntroductionThe main objective of this article is to analyse the reasons why the 2021 European Super League project failed. The authors ask whether, in addition to the popular clamour against a semi-closed competition, it was the combination of geopolitical interests of the different actors currently involved in European elite football that prevented the project from going ahead.MethodsThe main methodological framework is based on a case study, which follows an Stakian approach. To do so, on the one hand, a historiographical analysis of the case has been done; on the other hand, authors have complemented this case study with an analysis of 23 pieces of news published on the website of five mainstream newspapers (from April to June 2021) from those countries with the most significant European football leagues: The United Kingdom (The Guardian), Spain (El País), France (Le Monde), Italy (La Repubblica) and Germany (Der Spiegel). To supplement the analysis of this phenomenon, authors have also considered other relevant news published in other mainstream press or news agencies (such as The New York Times, Politico, The Yorkshire Post, The Times, Marca, Bloomberg and Reuters).Results and DiscussionThe authors conclude that, while financially the Super League debate has not been closed, in defending the current business and competition model of European football, UEFA has had the complicity of owners and shareholders of the founding clubs outside of their traditional historical roots, as well as governments that have made football an asset because of their geopolitical positioning, such as Qatar and the UK post-Brexit.

This is the first article to empirically examine what drives TV audience demand for the UEFA Champions League (UCL) in major European markets. It then asks: How well does the tournament structure meet the preferences of TV viewers? The article analyses the UCL from 2013/14–2018/19, considering TV viewing figures for all televised games from the group stages through to the finals in six nations – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. It then analyses match data in the UCL since its most recent tournament restructure in 2003/04, along with Ballon d'Or results and UEFA Club Coefficient rankings, to assess the efficiency of the current tournament structure. Uncertainty of outcome is not significantly associated with the size of TV audiences for the UCL, but both the presence of star players and team quality are. However, analysis of match data reveals that the current structure of the UCL does not maximise the number of star players or top clubs that progress to the latter stages of the tournament. These findings enable UEFA and other sport competition organisers to make evidence-informed decisions about how to structure competitions, while balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders. They also contribute to the small but growing body of empirical work that seeks to identify the key drivers of TV demand for sport – increasingly the dominant form of revenue for many sport organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We applied a three-dimensional panel data model of individual match attendance, while controlling for all nuisance variables affecting the home team, visiting team, and season, to the panel dataset of the Italian football league from 2000/2001 to 2016/2017. We attempted to construct a European-specific attendance regression model that takes into account the 'open' league structure, as well as inter-league competitions. In particular, we consider three types of outcome uncertainty: game uncertainty, relegation uncertainty, and Champions League qualification uncertainty. Our empirical results do not support the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis respect to game uncertainty and Champions League qualification uncertainty. However, the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis cannot be rejected with respect to relegation uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of SPORMETRE: The Journal of Physical Education & Sport Sciences / Beden Eğitimi ve Spor Bilimleri Dergisi is the property of SPORMETRE: The Journal of Physical Education & Sport Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aimed to benchmark and analyze match performance of elite soccer players from various confederations during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 (Men's WC) and FIFA Women's World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 (Women's WC). A total of 128 matches were analyzed using an optical tracking system ( n  = 1,351 player observations). Players from various national teams were categorized into their respective confederations: Europe (UEFA), South America (CONMEBOL), North/Central America and Caribbean (CONCACAF), Africa (CAF) and Asia and Oceania (AFC/OFC). Generalized Linear Mixed Models and Linear Mixed Models were employed to assess performance differences between confederations. Data revealed that CONMEBOL players in the Men's WC covered less total distance than UEFA players ( p  = 0.0396; ES = 0.6). However, no differences were found in high-intensity running and sprinting distances across confederations in both tournaments. UEFA players in both competitions typically demonstrated superior technical/tactical performances. In particular, UEFA players in the Women's World Cup made more passes, had 7-16% higher pass completion rates and achieved 10-15% greater line break completion rates compared to those from CAF, CONCACAF and AFC/OFC ( p  < 0.0001 to p  = 0.0199, ES = 0.5-1.3). These findings suggest that UEFA players may possess a tactical/technical edge in international competitions. However, caution should be exercised when interpreting data due to high variations within confederations. This is the first comprehensive study describing match performance between confederations during the Men's and Women's WC, providing valuable insights into the physical and technical/tactical aspects of elite soccer.

It seems that one cannot find many papers relating entropy to sport competitions. Thus, in this paper, I use (i) the Shannon intrinsic entropy (S) as an indicator of “teams sporting value” (or “competition performance”) and (ii) the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHi) as a “teams competitive balance” indicator, in the case of (professional) cyclist multi-stage races. The 2022 Tour de France and 2023 Tour of Oman are used for numerical illustrations and discussion. The numerical values are obtained from classical and and new ranking indices which measure the teams “final time”, on one hand, and “final place”, on the other hand, based on the “best three” riders in each stage, but also the corresponding times and places throughout the race, for these finishing riders. The analysis data demonstrate that the constraint, “only the finishing riders count”, makes much sense for obtaining a more objective measure of “team value” and team performance”, at the end of a multi-stage race. A graphical analysis allows us to distinguish various team levels, each exhibiting a Feller-Pareto distribution, thereby indicating self-organized processes. In so doing, one hopefully better relates objective scientific measures to sport team competitions. Moreover, this analysis proposes some paths to elaborate on forecasting through standard probability concepts.

This paper illustrates the value of using betting data to simulate an ex-ante distribution of league-point outcomes for English professional association football. Competition in the three tiers of the English Football League (EFL) is much more balanced than in the English Premier League (EPL). The competition at the top of the tables is more concentrated than at the bottom of the tables. Clubs relegated into a lower league tend to perform well the next season. Still, this effect does not seem to be impacted by parachute payments given to those relegated from the EPL into the second division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the binomial-match as a model for the bivariate score in a paired-contest. This model is naturally associated with sports in which the restart alternates following a goal. The model is a challenger to the Poisson-match, a pair of independent Poisson random variables whose means are related to the strengths of the competing teams. We use the binomial-match primarily to study the relationship between outcome uncertainty and scoring-rate, particularly for high values of the scoring-rate. Netball has a high scoring-rate and motivates our model development. In the binomial-match framework, we also evaluate rule-variations, and study tactical play in netball. Our analysis suggests that the binomial-match is not a better forecaster than the Poisson-match, but it is better for representing outcome uncertainty and evaluating rule-variations and tactics. In general, we find that the binomial-match implies greater outcome uncertainty than the Poisson match, for a given scoring-rate, and that an alternating-restart is a good rule for reducing the frequency of tied outcomes. For netball in particular, we show that starting the final quarter with possession in a close, balanced match may confer a significant advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current plant diversity can influence exotic plant invasion, but it is unclear whether there is a legacy effect of plant diversity on exotic plant invasion. As plant diversity can affect soil microbial communities and physio-chemical properties, which may cascade to impact subsequent exotic plant growth, we hypothesize that the soil legacy effect of plant diversity can influence exotic plant invasion. We conducted a plant–soil feedback experiment. In the conditioning phase, we trained soils by monocultures of 12 plant species from three functional groups (4 grasses, 3 legumes and 5 forbs) and mixtures of 8 randomly selected species with all three functional groups from this 12-species pool. In the test phase, we grew the invasive plant Bidens pilosa with a co-occurring native grass (Arthraxon hispidus), with a co-occurring native forb (Pterocypsela indica) or with both in each type of the conditioned soils. The performance of B. pilosa relative to its native competitors varied depending on the functional type of both conditioning plant species in the conditioning phase and competing plant species in the test phase. Diversity of the conditioning plants did not influence the growth difference between B. pilosa and its native competitors. However, increasing diversity of the competing plant species reduced the performance of B. pilosa relative to its native competitors. Our results suggest that current plant diversity can reduce exotic plant invasion through increasing growth inequality between invasive and native plants, but the soil legacy effect of plant diversity may have little impact on exotic plant invasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study integrates the literature on organizational fields and logics of action with the sport management and economics literature by investigating the impact of an exogenous shock on talent distribution in the field of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 men's basketball. We examine data related to human resource entry and exit through the lens of the National Basketball Association's one-and-done rule and its subsequent impact on competitive balance among National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 men's basketball programs. Hypotheses are tested in relation to pre- and postshock talent dispersion and competitive balance employing an interdisciplinary econometric approach to evaluate management-driven outcomes. Broadly, we find improvements in balance and a broader distribution of player talent among schools comprising larger conferences, whereas smaller conferences experienced reductions or no changes in balance. Implications are discussed and future directions for integrated institutional theory and sport management research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]