What made the tour successful? Competitive balance in the tour de France, 1947–2017

Abstract

The Tour de France is the most popular and prestigious bicycle race in the world. Since the 1980s, it has also had increasing economic success. Is such economic success related to improvements in competitive balance among riders, i.e. the degree of parity among opponents and the resulting difficulty to predict the competition's end result? We compute several measures of static (annual) and dynamic (year-to-year) competitive balance for the yellow jersey from 1947 to 2017, both among the top five riders and among team leaders. Our main result is that competitive balance in the Tour de France has not improved much since 1947: the time performances of top riders and team leaders have not become closer to each otheror harder to predict from one year to the next. Therefore, the increasing economic success of the Tour since the 1980s cannot be attributed to improvements in the race's competitive balance. Other factors must have been driving the increasing demand for the Tour, including better-quality television broadcasting of the event.

Tour de France in a digital television paradigm

“…In the following decades, visits to neighboring countries took place from time to time, mainly in order to promote cycling and thus strengthen the interest in the Tour in the long term. Since the 1980s, and especially from the beginning of the 21 st century, foreign Grand Départs have become more frequent (Bacik & Klobucnik, 2023). Increased television coverage, first in Europe and later globally, have turned the Grand Départ into a promotional tool in a class of its own.…”

The Tour de France: A Success Story in Spite of Competitive Imbalance

“…Competitive balance may contribute to the attractiveness of the Tour in several ways (Bačik, Klobučnik and Mignot 2021). First, it generates 'uncertainty of outcome' (Rottenberg 1956) and spectators' feeling of suspense, which supposedly are at the origin of the demand for most if not all individual or team sport events (Szymanski 2006;Humphreys and Watanabe 2012).…”

“…As cyclists sometimes collude to share prizes instead of fighting for victory (low competitive intensity), Tour organizers have repeatedly tried to improve competition among riders in order to attract more spectators and thus increase the Tour's revenues and profits (Bačik et al 2021). This is why they have decided to shorten the race to make it more attractive to attack and counter-attack.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Competitive Balance Between a Closed and an Open League in Rugby League

“…A comparison of two leading domestic competitions operating under different regulatory structures can provide insight into operationalization of open and closed leagues to further theoretical debate based on observational evidence. Secondly, research from different types of sporting competitions suggests that competitive balance, to some degree, influences competition attractiveness and attendance, but other factors such as competition intensity, superstar presence, and broadcasting quality all matter (Bačik et al, 2019;Jane, 2016;Scelles et al, 2013). Although competitive balance may not be a golden bullet to cultivating fan engagement, it is part of the solution.…”