ABSTRACT
A world without soccer is unimaginable. The world soccer association FIFA has more members (207) than the United Nations (192). In most countries, the national soccer association is the largest sports association, soccer is the most broadcasted sport on television, and soccer players are the best paid athletes. With the 2002World Cup having been organized in Asia, and the 2010 World Cup being played in Africa, it is likely that global interest in soccer will continue to increase. Simultaneously with the growth of interest in soccer, the sport has developed itself
as a professional activity. Professionalization and commercialization of soccer have taken off later than in American professional sports such as baseball, basketball, American football, and ice hockey (Szymanski and Zimbalist, 2003). Nowadays, soccer is a global industry despite its roots as a recreational activity. The increase of the economic value of soccer has changed both the game itself, and the organization of games and leagues. For example, the European Commission takes an active in-
volvement in determining the system of transfer fees to be paid when a player leaves a team despite an ongoing contract. In The Netherlands, the bid book for the sale of television broadcasting rights was examined by the anti-trust authority before the actual procedure to sell the rights started. This increased attention for soccer by regulatory agencies is often justified by pointing to the need to maintain some level playing field between teams. This is one specific feature of sports industries in general and soccer leagues in particular: competition is their very product. Sports leagues need to produce “competitive excitement” to survive. Without competitive excitement, a sports league would be dull: after all, then there is not much that is attractive to customers (i.e., fans). This is in contrast with nonsports industries. The sports industries’ uniqueness in the business world as a producer and seller of competition makes them particularly interesting from an antitrust perspective. A complication in the case of soccer is that there are at least two relevant competitions: national leagues such as The Premiership in England, the Serie A in Italy, and the Primera Division in Spain, but ever larger economic and sportive significance is attached to the main international league: the Champions League organized by the European soccer association UEFA. There is also a third level of competition, the competition between national teams. In this chapter we focus only on competitive balance in national leagues. Especially at a national level, fans, media, and policy makers often worry about
a decrease in competitive balance. Also, smaller teams like to stress the importance of competitive balance when new rules concerning the division of the proceeds of broadcasting rights are determined. However, there seems to be relatively little research into the development of competitive balance over time, and the consequences of two major shocks to competitive balance: introduction of the Champions League in 1992, and the Bosman ruling of 1995. The introduction of the Champions League has given teams the opportunity to earn relatively large sums of money in that competition. As a consequence, national competitive balance could be disrupted. The Bosman ruling has made players free agents upon expiration of their contract. As a result of this, smaller teams in particular, have lost income from transfer fees as an important source of revenue. The theoretical consequences of these shocks are examined in Haan, Koning, and van Witteloostuijn (2007). In this chapter, we study the development of national competitive balance over
time, for seven different countries: Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain. Also, we examine the development of competitive balance at an international level by looking at European competitions for club teams. Because there is no general agreement in the literature concerning the measurement of competitive balance in soccer, we introduce and discuss different measures of competitive balance, and we try to condense these measures as well.
