The Comparison of Competitive Balance between Super Rugby (Sanzar) and English Premiership Rugby: A Case Study from 1996-2014 Season or Not Attractive – No People – No Money

Abstract

Most sports are attractive because they are almost unpredictable. The more the competitiveness of league teams, the harder to predict the games and as a result, that league will be more attractive. Message is: more attractive leagues= bigger audience= more attractive for sponsorship= more money in sport. Competitive balance (CB) refers to the balance in sport capabilities of teams. The aim of this paper was to compare the competitive balance between Super Rugby league named SANZAR, which consist of three nations (New Zealand, Australia and South Africa) and English Premiership Rugby League in 1996-2014 seasons and compare them. The data were secondary and collected from the final tables.It was used five models in this study: the three-club and five-club concentration ratio (C3 and C5) and C3/C5 index of competitive balance (C3ICB/C5ICB) were used to analyse the data. The less the index C3ICB/C5ICB and C3/C5 are, the more competitive balance is, and conversely. Standard deviation of game results, the ratio of actual and ideal standard deviation wins, numbers of winners and a placement in the k-th place.The results showed that the Salary cap in Premiership League does not work very effectively and the competitive balance is in last few seasons still worst and worst. Super Rugby has mirror position to Premiership. Last few years are the competitive balance on the right track. Comparison result is for Super Rugby strategy with involving more teams to the league.

On outcome uncertainty and scoring rates in sport: The case of international rugby union

“…The relationship between the popularity of a sport and outcome uncertainty has been well-studied (e.g. Forrest and Simmons, 2002;Alavy et al, 2010;Buraimo and Simmons, 2015;Hogan et al, 2013Kuchar and Martin, 2016), and has been shown to even transcend national boundaries (Schreyer et al, 2017). In these cases, higher competitive balance is found to be associated with elevated interest, although Borland and Macdonald (2003) in a review paper found that the empirical results on this relationship are mixed.…”