Measuring competitive intensity in sports leagues

Abstract

Purpose

For managers of sports leagues, it is crucial to produce an attractive competition. For that to happen, it is vital to consider that leagues frequently have more sub-competitions than “just” the championship. In European top football leagues, for instance, four sub-competitions are common (championship, qualification for Champions- or Europa League, avoiding relegation). This paper introduces a new method for measuring competitive intensity (CI) in round-robin sports leagues considering all relevant sub-competitions and applies it to Germany's Bundesliga.

Design/methodology/approach

The newly developed model calculates a CI-Index for each sub-competition and the league as a whole. The application to the Bundesliga analyzes its viability and the development of the league's CI over the past 22 seasons.

Findings

The newly introduced CI-Indices prove to be a viable tool for evaluating a league's competitive intensity. The application to the Bundesliga shows that the seasonal CI dropped after 2009/10, which can mainly be attributed to a decline in the championship's CI.

Practical implications

The results show that it is important to facilitate a high CI in each of Bundesliga's four sub-competitions. Efforts have to be made to ensure that especially the Europa League remains as attractive as possible for the participating teams and their fans because this sub-competition constantly makes the greatest contribution to the seasonal CI.

Originality/value

The new method measures competitive intensity by quantifying the different sub-competitions and their contribution to the seasonal CI. This allows the organizers of sports leagues to assess the intensity of the individual sub-competitions as well as the league as a whole.

Citation

Wagner, F., Preuss, H. and Könecke, T. (2020), "Measuring competitive intensity in sports leagues", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. 10 No. 5, pp. 599-620. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-10-2019-0090