Comparing competitive balance between genders in team sports

Abstract

Research question: Interest in women's team sports has increased over time. However, there is still little research comparing competitive balance between genders in the bigger sports leagues. Against this background the main research question is whether there are systematic differences in competitive balance between the genders among the bigger sports leagues. Research methods: The analysis involves football (soccer), handball and basketball leagues for the period 2007/08-2016/17 (14 leagues and 135 observations) and is based on quantitative methods. Competitive balance is a multidimensional concept, and this paper separately measures win dispersion, performance persistence and prize (here: championship winner) concentration. Results and findings: In football (soccer), win dispersion is strongly significantly weaker for women's leagues compared to their respective men's leagues, while the results for the other dimensions are mixed. Generally, the level of competitive balance seems weak in women's football (soccer) and in handball. For the latter, there is little difference in competitive balance between the genders. In basketball, the strong significant results for performance persistence suggest that the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is more balanced than the NBA. Implications: The level of competitive balance in women's football in Europe looks weak, also compared to the women's football in North America. If this leads to competitive balance problems (i.e. lower attendance, ceteris paribus) among women's football in Europe, governing bodies should consider traditional regulations to promote equalization of sporting quality and/or to adjust the framework of the game to better fit women's physiques.

Gender Inequality in European Football: Evidence from Competitive Balance and Competitive Intensity in the UEFA Men’s and Women’s Champions League

“…By contrast, the WNBA seems to be more balanced than the NBA, despite more males playing basketball than females in North America. Kringstad (2021) suggested that this is due to the lower number of teams in WNBA (12 vs. 30 in NBA), consistent with the need for an optimal number of teams to ensure CB.…”

“…More recently, Kringstad (2021) compared the level of CB (measured through win dispersion, performance persistence and championship concentration) between genders in the football and handball championships from three European countries (England, France and Germany), while extending the scope of his study to North American basketball, i.e., the men's National Basketball Association (NBA) and its women's counterpart (WNBA). Results show significantly lower CB for women than men in football and, to a lesser extent, in handball, consistent with the previous literature.…”

“…Competitiveness in sport is key to attract teams, players and fans (Scelles et al 2021) as part of a broader marketing strategy (Zsigmond et al 2020). Past academic studies highlighted differences in competitiveness between men's and women's sports, including men's and women's football (Kringstad 2021;Zambom-Ferraresi et al 2018). In its strategy document for the period 2019-2024, the European governing body of football, Union of European Football Associations UEFA (2019, p. 13), identifies competitiveness as one of the five pillars for the future of the sport and emphasises that competitiveness is needed to make its men's and women's tournaments "dynamic, entertaining and effective".…”

Dispersion and persistence in the competitive balance of North American major leagues 1960–2019

“…For the NHL tied games occurred up to 2004 and are treated as half wins in the RSD and %Time, while point percentages is used in the ASD*. The approach adopted by Kringstad (2021) for applying ASD* to the NBA is used, with ASD ub calculated each season using the end-of-regular-season standings to rank teams and with the notional distribution of win percentages for the perfectly competitive dominated league outcome calculated on the basis of the actual match schedule for the given season. We follow the suggestion in Utt and Fort (2002), based on Fort and Quirk (1997), that competitive dominance can be conceptualised as the best team winning all matches, while the second-best team wins all of its matches except the those against the best team and so on (see also Competitive balance in the NA major leagues Horowitz, 1997;Owen, 2010).…”

Money troubles and problems ahead? The financial health of professional women's football clubs in England

“…Some studies have considered women's sport from a broader economic perspective (e.g. Kringstad, 2021; Scelles, 2021; Valenti et al ., 2020a, 2020b). However, these papers centre competitive balance, and this is not the focus of our paper.…”