‘Competitive Balance’ in the Top Level of English Football, 1948–2008: An Absent Principle and a Forgotten Ideal

Abstract

Competitive balance is thought to be an important aspect of sport. Notions of ‘equity’ or ‘fair play’ appeal to the concept of competitive balance. Focusing upon the period between 1948 and 2008, this paper uses data from the top division of English football to investigate what has happened to competitive balance through the use of three measures. The first measure is an index, similar to a concentration ratio, that seeks to capture the extent to which the four most successful teams, by decade, have dominated the league. The second measure uses the Herfindahl index to discover the number of competitive teams in the league over the six decades. The final measure looks, season by season, at the probability of repeat success. The results suggest, from all three measures, that competitive balance has decreased and that the ‘beautiful game’ in England is in danger of becoming a monopoly of the few.

Notes

[1] ‘Power of Top Four Concerns Keegan’, BBC website, 6 May 2008, Available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/7384247.stm, accessed 14 Oct. 2008.

[2]Patrick Barclay, ‘Bashing Richard Scudamore is Wrong’, Daily Telegraph, 17 February 2008, available online at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/columnists/patrickbarclay/2291946/Bashing-Richard-Scudamore-is-wrong.html, accessed 31 March 2009; Jonathan Northcroft, ‘Football in 2025’, The Times (London), 29 March 2009, available online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article5993260.ece, accessed 31 March 2009.

[3] Interview with Richard Scudamore, Sportsweek, BBC Radio 5 Live, 14 Sept. 2008.

[4] P. Kelso, ‘Lord Triesman and Richard Scudamore on English Football Collision Course’. Daily Telegraph, 7 October 2008, available online at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/3154984/Lord-Triesman-and-Richard-Scudamore-on-collision-course-Football.html, accessed 17 April 2009.

[5] J. Holden, ‘Is India's Cricket Auction the Way Forward for Football?’Daily Express, 24 February 2008, available online at https://www.express.co.uk/printer/view/35964/, accessed 31 March 2009.

[6] Goossens, ‘Competitive Balance in European Football’, 80.

[7] Michie and Oughton, Competitive Balance in Football: An Update, 2.

[8] Conn, The Football Business.

[9] Russell, Football and the English, 84.

[10] Ibid., 47.

[11] Ibid., 195.

[12] Ibid., 210.

[13] FA, Blueprint for the Future of Football; Conn, ‘The New Commercialism’.

[14] Szymanski, The Economic Design of Sporting Contests'.

[15] Szymanski, ‘Income Inequality, Competitive Balance and the Attractiveness of Team Sports’.

[16] Ibid., F69.

[17] Kuypers, ‘The Beautiful Game?'.

[18] Szymanski, ‘Income Inequality, Competitive Balance and the Attractiveness of Team Sports’, F69.

[19] Ibid., F74.

[20] Goossens, ‘Competitive Balance in European Football’, 105.

[21] Groot, ‘European Football: Back to the 1950s’.

[22] Michie and Oughton, Competitive Balance in Football: Trends and Effects. This assumes a league without promotion and relegation. Relaxing this assumption does not, in our view, change the minimum.

[23] Michie and Oughton, Competitive Balance in Football: Trends and Effects.

[24] Goossens, ‘Competitive Balance in European Football’.

[25] Michie and Oughton, Competitive Balance in Football: Trends and Effects.

[26] Szymanski, ‘Income Inequality, Competitive Balance and the Attractiveness of Team Sports’.

[27] The number of competing teams is calculated by using 1/HI. When HI equals 0.1, then 1/HI has a value of ten. The HI for 1999–2008 is 0.195 and suggests increased concentration and the number of competing teams now, approximately, five (1/0.195).

[28] Szymanski, ‘Income Inequality, Competitive Balance and the Attractiveness of Team Sports’.

[29] Interview with Richard Scudamore, 14 Sept. 2008.

[30] Michie and Oughton, Competitive Balance in Football: Trends and Effects.