This article reexamines the calculation of the relative standard deviation (RSD) measure of competitive balance in leagues in which draws are possible outcomes. Some key conclusions emerging from the exchange between Cain and Haddock and Fort are reversed. There is no difference, for any given...

The Bosman ruling and its aftermath allowed soccer players to move more freely between clubs in Europe. This study examines the performance of national and club teams in Europe before and after Bosman. Some national teams improved after the ruling while others became weaker, but the overall...

The authors extend the theory of optimal competitive balance to leagues where single-game ticket sales dominate revenues. Whether a planner that maximizes the sum of fan and owner surpluses prefers more balance or less in such a league depends on the relative magnitude of marginal consumers'...

The National Basketball Association (NBA) league office determines the playing schedule for its member teams and in doing so assigns an unequal number of games played on consecutive nights (back-to-back games). Although NBA coaches privately complain of a bias in the scheduling of these types of...

Using games from Major League Baseball's 2007 season, individual game attendance is estimated using censored normal regression with home-team fixed-effects. Included in the model are several factors affecting attendance, such as divisional and interleague rivalries, that to date have been...

This paper develops a contest model of a professional sports league in which clubs maximize a weighted sum of profits and wins (utility maximization). The model analyzes how more win-oriented behavior of certain clubs affects talent investments, competitive balance, and club profits. Moreover,...

The article models the upset—a low-probability outcome of a periodic competition. It is assumed that the upset is an independent component of consumer preferences, whose marginal willingness to pay grows with time. The decision rule for a league on upset timing is a competitive-balance problem...

This article analyses competitive balance in Formula 1 motor racing 1950-2010. It is shown that regulation change has had a significant positive impact on championship uncertainty but not on race uncertainty or long-term dominance. If television viewer suspense is positively related not only to...